Survival Scout Interest Badge

(Previously Backwoodsman Badge)

Survival is about far more than simply staying alive—it is about using knowledge, resourcefulness, teamwork, and sound judgement in challenging and unpredictable environments. The Survival Scout Interest Badge takes your skills to the next level through a real outdoor Survival Adventure experience where you will apply advanced survival techniques in the veld. You will build and live in your own improvised shelter, find and manage water, navigate unfamiliar terrain, prepare and cook food, manage hazards, and develop the confidence, resilience, and independence needed to thrive in the wild.

Badge Requirements

Prerequisite Knowledge and Training
Have passed the requirements for the following Scoutcraft Badge and be prepared to demonstrate any of those requirements:
- Survival Scoutcraft Badge
Survival Adventure
- Take part in a supervised Survival Adventure in an area unfamiliar to you lasting at least three days and two nights.
- During the adventure, actively apply your survival skills by constructing your own survival shelter and living in it throughout the adventure, obtaining, and managing water, preparing food, navigating unfamiliar terrain, managing environmental hazards, and demonstrating safe, responsible, and environmentally sustainable outdoor practices.
- This is a real survival-style expedition where you will rely on your skills, teamwork, and judgement to live safely in the outdoors. You should actively participate in all aspects of the Survival Adventure demonstrating sound judgement, safety awareness, and respect for the natural environment throughout the experience.
Core Survival Skills
During the Survival Adventure demonstrate the following skills:
1. Shelter:
  - Identify and describe different natural shelter types suitable for use in the wild (woodlands, forests, veld, deserts), explaining how each provides protection from sun, cold, wind, and rain, and outlining the specific advantages and limitations of each shelter type.
  - Build a simple weatherproof emergency shelter suitable for overnight use in your local environment using natural materials, a tarpaulin, poncho, or groundsheet.
  - Use the shelter during your entire Survival Adventure activity and demonstrate how to leave the site in a natural condition after dismantling it.
2. Fire and Cooking:
  - Cook all your meals from raw ingredients over an open fire without using conventional cooking utensils or aluminium foil. Prepare and cook a meal, such as a fish, chicken, rabbit, or similar food source appropriate to the environment and local regulations.
3. Water:
  - Demonstrate and use an appropriate method of obtaining or collecting water that does not rely directly on rivers, dams, streams, or taps, such as rainwater collection, a solar still, a condensation trap, or a transpiration bag.
4. Emergency Signalling:
  - Demonstrate at least two recognised emergency signalling methods suitable for daytime use and one suitable for night-time use. • Examples may include: ground-to-air signals, body signals, whistle signals, signalling mirror, flashlight, signal fire.
5. Navigation:
  - Navigate at least 3 km through unfamiliar terrain during daylight and at least 2 km at night using environmental cues such as terrain features, sun position, and natural markers without relying on a map, compass, GPS, roads, or assistance from others.
6. Venomous Creatures:
  - Recognise the most common venomous snakes in your area and explain precautions to avoid snake bites, spider bites and venomous insect stings such as wasps, bees, or scorpions.
  - Demonstrate the appropriate first aid treatment required to treat snake bites and venomous insect bites/stings.
7. Wildlife Hazards:
  - Explain and demonstrate appropriate safety precautions when travelling in areas inhabited by large or potentially dangerous wildlife.
  - Discuss the precautions you should take when in areas inhabited by wild animals, including monkeys, baboons, predators, and other potentially dangerous species found in your environment.
8. Disease Prevention:
  - Identify the signs and symptoms of diseases that may be caused by contaminated food, contaminated water, or insect bites. Examples such as bilharzia, malaria, tick bite fever, and typhoid fever.
  - Explain how these diseases can be prevented and what action should be taken if symptoms develop.
Foraging & Survival Food Skills
1. Edible Natural Food Sources:
  - Explain the types of natural food resources that may be available in your local veld or wilderness environment.
  - Under the guidance of a suitably knowledgeable person, correctly identify three edible plants, fruits, fungi, or other natural food sources found in your local environment and explain their safe uses.
  - Discuss the risks of misidentification and explain why wild foods should never be eaten unless their identity is known with certainty.
    Note: Where suitable wild food sources are not available or cannot be safely identified, alternative locally available edible species or cultivated equivalents may be used for instructional purposes.
2. Emergency Food Procurement:
  - Demonstrate how an emergency survival trap, snare, or fishing method suitable to your environment would be constructed and explain when such methods would be appropriate in a genuine survival situation.
  - Discuss why traps and snares should only be used in a personal survival emergency and the importance of removing illegal or abandoned traps from the veld/bush where safe and lawful to do so.
    Note: As "A Scout is a friend to animals", Scouts are not expected or encouraged to set or use snares or traps involving animals. The focus is on understanding survival techniques and their ethical implications. The only permitted practical exception is fishing, where a fish may be caught, prepared, cooked, and eaten as part of the Survival Adventure experience.

Recommended Age Range: The Survival Scout Interest Badge is recommended for Scouts aged 14 to 17 years who are ready for a demanding, real-world wilderness experience that builds on the Survival Scoutcraft Badge. The requirements are designed for Scouts who have developed sufficient maturity, independence, and outdoor experience to safely apply advanced survival skills, including shelter building, navigation, hazard management, and emergency decision-making, in a supervised exciting Survival Adventure

Badge Examiner: Training and examination for this badge should be conducted by a suitably qualified individual who has relevant experience or formal training in the specific field of expertise being assessed. The ideal examiner should be an experienced Adult Leader with advanced survival knowledge and practical wilderness experience, wilderness guides, outdoor instructors, bushcraft practitioners, conservation field staff, SANParks rangers, wilderness first aid instructors, or other suitably qualified survival specialists. Examiners should have practical survival experience and a strong understanding of safe outdoor practices.

Note to the Examiner:

The Survival Scout Interest Badge skills may be demonstrated progressively throughout the Survival Adventure or across several survival activities, rather than all being assessed during a single event.
Assessment should focus on the Scout's ability to safely apply practical survival skills in realistic outdoor situations.
Any food issued at the start of the Survival Adventure should be carried by the Scouts throughout the adventure as part of their equipment and food management. This reflects realistic survival practice, where food must be transported and managed while travelling. The exception is any animal or fish provided for Requirement 3(b) (Fires and Cooking), which may be issued immediately before preparation for food safety, hygiene, and animal welfare reasons.
For Requirement 3(b) (Fires and Cooking), Scouts are not expected to slaughter or humanely dispatch animals. In keeping with Scout Law 6 – "A Scout is a friend to animals", any chicken, rabbit, or other animal provided for food preparation should already have been humanely dispatched. Scouts should demonstrate the skills of plucking (where applicable), gutting, cleaning, preparing, and cooking the animal, either individually or as part of a Patrol, provided each Scout actively participates.
The exception is fishing, where a Scout may legally catch, prepare, cook, and eat a fish as part of the Survival Adventure.
For Requirement 4(a) (Edible Natural Food Sources), Wild edible plants, fruits, fungi, and other natural food sources should only be identified or consumed under the guidance of a suitably knowledgeable person. Scouts must never be encouraged to eat any wild food unless its identity has been confirmed with certainty. The emphasis of this requirement is on safe identification, responsible harvesting, and understanding the risks of misidentification, rather than foraging for food independently.

Safe From Harm: Whilst completing the requirements for this badge, Scouts must not be placed in hazardous or dangerous situations under any circumstances. All activities must comply with SCOUTS South Africa Safe from Harm framework and be supervised by responsible adults. Participation should offer meaningful learning or service experiences while ensuring the Scout's safety and well-being at all times.

Badge Requirements in printable PDF format

Survival Scout Interest Badge (PDF)

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