He is best known for research focused on herptiles, studying the relationship between biodiversity and people's cultural diversity, and writing South Africa's first comprehensive wildlife guide for frogs to be jointly published in an Indigenous language (IsiZulu) and English.
[11][12] Subsequent to this book, Phaka has produced scientific literature whose highlights include showing a link between the cultural importance of wildlife and the accumulation of biodiversity data for that wildlife,[13] cataloguing herptile species in South Africa's urban traditional medicine markets using DNA barcoding,[14] and initiating the compilation of a comprehensive list of Indigenous language names for South Africa's ≈550 herptile species.
[18] Due to the cost of undergraduate studies being too high for his mother to afford by herself, Phaka dropped out to learn wildlife documentary filmmaking in 2009 and afterwards he was hired as the trainee researcher/producer for South Africa's longest running environmental TV show, 50.
Subsequently, Phaka worked various roles as a freelancer in the television industry and produced his first environmental documentary, commissioned by 50|50, titled ‘Green Darkies’ in 2011.
[23] He has also written a technical brief based on his research meant to demonstrate to South African policymakers how Indigenous people's perspectives can be incorporated into conservation policy.