our story
Our Story
The founders and owners of Kosi Forest Lodge, Brett and Paige Gehren, both come from a conservation background. Together, they run collection of wilderness lodges positioned in exceptional ecosystems in Southern Africa. Thirty years of pioneering sustainable wildlife lodges, that is built on the bedrock that they include and empower our neighbouring communities.
The Kosi Family
A family business at heart, we create and run the lodges we believe in. Each camp begins as a vision, carefully chosen locations that evolve into places of beauty, character, and meaning, the kind we would choose for our own honeymoon or family holidays.
As we grow, so too does our commitment to the people and communities who bring these places to life. Today, Kosi Forest Lodge is operated in partnership with a local community shareholder, ensuring shared ownership, long-term sustainability, and a deeper connection to place.
Happy, empowered teams are central to everything we do. We take great joy in our work and believe that spirit is felt in every guest experience. Guided by our motto courage & fun, we invite you to share in the journey.
Community Work
Kosi Forest Lodge has long partnered with The Isibindi Foundation, established in 2019 to bring together years of community and conservation initiatives under one purpose-driven entity. Through this partnership, our guests are invited to travel with meaning, becoming philanthropic travellers who journey with purpose and help support the people and environments that make Kosi so special.
“ Travel is powerful when it connects us to a purpose and a community.”
- Tom Brown Jr.
Connecting to our eco-conscious community
Our purpose drives us all, we are committed to incorporating eco-conscious systems and initiatives wherever possible, this includes:
Removing single use plastics which includes replacing plastic water bottles with a reusable bottle for each guest
Investing in solar energy
Creating micro-economies in neighbouring communities to supply our lodge
Refusing to serve seafood that is not ethically harvested
explore the natural space we call home
Kosi Forest Lodge is situated within the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, a tropical paradise of crystal clear water, marshland, swamp and coastal forests that is home to an abundance of flora and fauna.
A Natural Treasure
“iSimangaliso must be the only place on the globe where the oldest land mammal (the rhinoceros) and the world’s biggest terrestrial mammal (the elephant) share an ecosystem with the world’s oldest fish (the coelacanth) and the world’s biggest marine mammal (the whale).” - Nelson Mandela
Some of South Africa’s very first plants and animals can still be found in iSimangaliso as they were in ancient times. Apart from many mammals and reptiles, the area is home to 2505 types of plants, over 1000 species of fish and over 500 bird species; many of which can’t be found anywhere else in the world. No other place on earth has such a wide range of wetland types in a single protected area.
iSimangaliso Wetland Park
Established in November 2000, the iSimangaliso Wetland Park is one of the greatest environmental treasures in the world. This important protected area was established when sixteen pieces of land covering 332 000 hectares were consolidated into a single protected area (previously known as the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park). The area stretches from Kosi Bay in the north (bordering Mozambique) to Maphelane, south of St Lucia. From north to south, iSimangaliso stretches for 190km and comprises one-third of KwaZulu-Natal’s expansive coastline. iSimangaliso means “place of miracles” in Zulu. In 1999, iSimangaliso was recognised as South Africa’s first World Heritage Site. With its beauty and biological wealth, this is a well-deserved accolade.
The Kosi Lake System
The Kosi lake system has long been regarded as the best-preserved large estuary system on South Africa’s Indian Ocean coastline. The system consists of four large lakes and a series of meandering, interconnecting channels with fringing wetlands that eventually drain through a sandy estuary into the Indian Ocean. The lakes are separated from the ocean by a strip of forested sand dunes. The Kosi lake system is characterised by grassland, interspersed with lakes, pans, streams, marshes and swamps.
The 11 000ha of Kosi Bay Nature Reserve is a wonderland of clear blue sea, wetlands and lakes. It is home to the rare Raphia palm and its concomitant palm-nut vulture, wild date palms, mangrove swamps and sycamore fig forests. The area is of considerable botanical importance, with several red data species found here. The swamp forests found in this area are the largest in the country and the giant Raphia palm is at its natural southern limit here. This is also the only area in South Africa where five species of mangrove are found, two of which (luminitzera racemosa and ceriops tagal) are at the southernmost limit of their distribution.
The Kosi Bay area is one of the most fascinating and beautiful pristine lake systems on the African coast, and we are proud and privileged to be able to enjoy a piece of it at Kosi Forest Lodge.
