Wild and Responsible

African lodges weigh in on the principles of responsible wildlife tourism, where conservation champions mindful luxury.

- BY CHARUKESI RAMADURAI

A few months ago, in the middle of peak tourist season in Kenya and Tanzania, a disturbing video made the rounds on social media.

Shot by wildlife guide Nick Kleer in the Serengeti, it captured an alarming scene of over a hundred safari vehicles crowding a single point along the Mara River, blocking the wildebeest migration path. Barely had the outrage settled, when another video of tourists swarming the banks on the Kenyan side and sending the wildebeest into a frenzied panic emerged. In both cases, tourists had stepped out of the vehicle—against park rules—risking the safety of both animals and humans.

While it is tempting to shrug these off as isolated incidents, the lack of respect for wild spaces is becoming increasingly common on African safaris. “Witnessing the wildebeest migration is a dream for many people, but what happened in the Serengeti was really shocking behaviour,” says Alex Millar, sales and marketing specialist at Great Plains Conservation, a tourism and conservation organisation.

The good news is that authorities have already begun to impose strict regulations to protect these areas from overcrowding. Talking about the drastic increase in tourists thronging the Masai Mara, Ryan Powell, COO of andBeyond, a luxury experiential travel company, says, “The Kenya government is doing a lot to control vehicle movement and limit visitor numbers within the reserve.”

Rules are even more stringent in places like Uganda and Rwanda, where tourists come to see endangered chimpanzees and gorillas. Praveen Moman, founder of Volcanoes Safaris and someone who has been personally involved in the great apes conservation story for over 28 years now, asserts that wildlife authorities have restricted the number of visitors going into the forest each day and set guidelines for ideal behaviour in the presence of wild animals.