Brian Bredenkamp was born in 1948 near the town of Benoni in the Transvaal province of South Africa, now known as Gauteng. He attended Belfast High School and passed the Transvaal University Entrance Examination in 1965.
He started his forestry career as a pupil forester at Frankfort State Forest near Sabie in Mpumalanga before qualifying as a forester at Saasveld College for Foresters outside George. He holds bachelor's, honours and master's degrees in forest science from the University of Stellenbosch and a PhD in forest biometrics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in the United States of America. He spent the bulk of his career in forestry research with the South African Forestry Research Institute, based in Pietermaritzburg, Natal. He resigned from SAFRI, after twenty-three years service, as head of the Site and Sylviculture Section at the Saasveld Forestry Research Centre with the rank of Senior Specialist Scientist (Deputy Director). He joined the academic staff of the University of Stellenbosch in 1991 and became Professor of Forest Management in the Department of Forest Science in the Faculty of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences in 1992; a position he still holds.
He is happily married to Lani, since 1972. They have two sons and a daughter-in-law, and a baby granddaughter, and live in Stellenbosch.
Brian was President of the Stellenbosch Philatelic Society (1992 - 2003) and currently serves as Chairman of the Tree Advisory Committee of the Stellenbosch Integrated Development Plan where he plays a prominent role in the conservation and management of the town's urban forest.