Safari travelers are becoming increasingly concerned with making responsible travel choices. The response is a litany of ‘green’ claims from camps and lodges, safari operators, and safari planning agents. The difficulty for consumers is to figure out what claims are important and what should be considered ‘greenwashing’ as many accomplishments are trumpeted when they may relatively be falling far short of where they could be. One common example of this is the touting of economic benefits a safari operation creates for the local community. No lasting wildlife conservation and habitat protection can occur without delivering sufficient benefits to the local people. Virtually any operation will hire some local staff and thus they tout their contribution. However, the model in many companies is to hire labor staff locally and then import managers from other countries. In such a situation the claim is technically true that the safari operation does provide economic benefits but compared to an operation that commonly trains and employs all levels of staff from the local community it is clear that much more could be done, and should be done before taking credit for supporting the locals. An even further step is to have the community participate as a partial or complete owner of a camp.
Mapula Lodge is staffed 100% with Batswana people while many camps in Northern Botswana are still managed by South Africans
Things become more complicated when safari companies that are doing far less than some of their competitors win impressive sounding environmental awards even though there is often no vetting process and the winners might be selected by votes of unqualified travel agents who usually have no environmental background to judge or simply based on who advertises heavily with a popular publication.
Ian Michler wrote a very interesting article in Africa Geographic (May 2008) that discusses that currently most lodges are ranked with starts or paw prints and it is those with the biggest ecological footprints that tend to score the highest. Add a spa or private plunge pool for each tent and you become 5 Star or 6 Paw rated, thus marketing rewards often come from passing on more impact to the land. Michler suggests, and I agree, that a new system of rating needs to be developed that gives the highest rewards for minimal ecological footprints and positive environmental stewardship, including community upliftment.
At The Wild Source we follow these issues closely and talk directly with operators to find out what they are doing for responsible travel rather than just accept their literature and award claims. Of course we are not able to vett every option available and thus we hope reliable environmental audit processes will develop in the future that can apply reasonable ecotourism ratings.
Nomad's Greystoke Mahale Camp
At present Kenya does have an organization, Ecotourism Society of Kenya (ESOK), that is applying a systematic approach to awarding ratings. In a very positive development, one of my favorite safari operators Nomad Tanzania, sought out an environmental audit from ESOK. No such evaluation system exists in Tanzania so Nomad reached across the border and has now earned ratings for Greystoke Mahale, Chada Katavi, and Sand Rivers Selous camps. Additionally they invited a carbon footprint audit by Energy for Sustainable Development. ESOK is now offering services in Tanzania and Uganda, while Southern Africa may develop its own regional evaluation system. Hopefully leaders like Nomad will help this concept gain traction and environmental audits and ratings will become an important part of this fragile business and influence consumers as much as the luxury star ratings have in the past.