DISRUPTING WILDLIFE?

RITZ-CARLTON'S CAMP IN KENYA'S MAASAI MARA OFFERS FRONT ROW SEATS TO THE GREAT MIGRATION BUT SOME SAY IT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN BUILT

- STORY: TARIRO MZEZEWA / NYT

When Marriott International announced in February that it would open a Ritz-Carlton luxury safari camp in Maasai Mara National Game Reserve in Kenya, it described the destination as the peak of luxury travel in Africa.

The Ritz-Carlton Maasai Mara Safari Camp, Marriott said, would have 20 tented suites, each with “a separate living area, private sunken lounge, infinity plunge pool and indoor and outdoor showers”.

Located on the banks of the Sand River, the camp would give guests “a front-row seat to experience the majesty of the Great Migration”, during which millions of animals move between Tanzania’s Serengeti and the Mara in search of better grazing and water.

The camp, which costs about US$3,500 (111,500 baht) per night, opened in August, and marked an exciting expansion for Marriott, a high-end hotel company. It was Ritz-Carlton’s first sub-Saharan property and its first foray into safari tourism.

But for at least some Maasai people, many of whom live in villages that surround the game reserve and for local guides who spend their days showing tourists the park, the prospect of the camp was far less appealing.

“The Maasai Mara is a fragile environment that is already overpopulated with camps for tourists,” said Meitamei Olol Dapash, a Maasai elder and the director of the Institute for Maasai Education, Research and Conservation. “The location of the Ritz-Carlton is one of the last places in the Mara that isn’t built on.”

He and other opponents of the camp are demanding that the companies tear it down, restore the landscape to its original state and plant native trees before next year’s migration.