Zeki Basan is the founder and head instructor of Highland Survival Skills. Based in the Scottish Highlands where he was born and raised, he is passionate about wild places and has the opportunity to practice outdoor and traditional crafts in everyday life in his remote environment. He leads courses at his home base in the Cairngorms National Park and teaches courses all over Scotland, working with different companies that use his expertise to engage people in the environment. These courses range from one day experiences to week-long immersions in nature involving traditional skills and crafts such as foraging, fire-craft and fire cooking, trapping, old fishing techniques, tracking and stalking, butchery, tool making, tanning and leather work, shelter building, basketry, wood carving, and much more. More information is available on the courses page.

Zeki makes sure he extends his knowledge by always experimenting with his craft and spending time with others who are also highly knowledgeable in this subject. He has spent time with tribal people, such as the San Bushmen, and has learned some of their skills for hunting and gathering in their environment. This led to a film he made on a hunt for bush hare called The Wild Within Us.You can fine out more about Zeki's films here.

Zeki works closely with Patrick McGlinchey and together they run the Highlander Course in the Cairngorms. He is the lead guide for a unique course, Wild Lives, that runs on the south coast of Greenland where he works with a local family to deliver the traditional living skills in one of the last great wildernesses.

Zeki is also a qualified Lantra-trained Tree Surgeon and for a number of years he worked as a Glacier Guide in Iceland. He makes his own films about his work and he has featured in different documentaries.