BUSHCRAFT

    Bushcraft also known in many countries as fieldcraft, are simply survival skills. Bushcraft includes all those skills the scout uses to make his existence in the bush (This can refer to forests, jungles, mountains etc.) more efficient, safe, and comfortable, with if need be minimal creature comforts and food. This might include improvising game traps for food; navigation by natural means such as the sun and stars; purifying or filtering stagnant water; improvising a shelter for protection from the elements; fire making with a bow and drill.

    Superior training in such skills as navigation, camouflage, foraging, tracking (See combat tracking section for more information) and staking let the scouts make weather and terrain an ally that protected them while it slowed and exposed the enemy and sapped his strength. 

    Bushcraft not only entails all the skills necessary for survival, but also the improvisation of on hand items to improve or fix, if need be on a patrol. this could include such things as rigging an improvised antenna; building booby traps; making a hide site of natural camouflage; and other ingenious bush techniques.

    The Selous scout stick leader most go to great lengths to ensure that all his scouts have developed and maintained their bushcraft prowess to the highest degree. He can never assume that they are proficient at bushcraft because they are indigenous to the region in which they are operating. Just because a scout was born and raised in a rural environment doesn't necessarily mean he will demonstrate the bush savvy his fellow scouts do.

    With the above in mind was incorporation of the Rhodesian bushcraft and tracking school. In the following sections I will cover some the skills employed by the former Selous Scouts and still being employed by many elite units today. They will be basically survival skills with a tactical overtone to them.