A weekend of learning and enjoying.
Habari mchana nzuri!
It’s been three weeks now since our team arrived in Arusha to work with Honeyguide on the marketing plan and financial viability analysis for a Conservation Center.
Those past weeks, we surveyed tourists, Tourist Guides, and Tour operators, we met with the Tanzania Tour Operator Association and the Tour Guide Association, the owner of the site where the Conservation Center will be built, … We gathered a lot of valuable information and sometimes divergent insights. The remaining three days will be consumed by condensing all the acquired info and feedback into findings and a consistent plan.
A lot of the tourists coming here (and there are over 1 million international tourists a year) spend a very significant amount of money to come all the way to Tanzania and enjoy a magnificent safari. Striking to me was the apparant lack of knowledge and awareness about the need for conservation efforts by the tourists we interviewed. However, once we got the change to explain, all but a few were keen to learn more, and expressed willingness to contribute.
Most safari-tourists coming to Tanzania, visit National Parks to see wildlife. Those National Parks are owned and operated by the government, who benefits from the proceeds of the tourism there. Rural communities are no longer living in the National Parks, so the space is entirely devoted to wildlife, and the wildlife can move in and out of the parks as migrations happen with changing seasons. While migrating, wildlife passes through areas of (sometimes dense) population, but in general there is lots of wildlife to be found outside of the National Parks that lives in areas where rural communities also live.
To have a better feeling about what it means to be living with wildlife, we decided to go camping in something that is called a Wildlife Management Area (WMA) last weekend. WMA areas are gigantic areas where wildlife management is done by the rural communities and with support by organisations like Honeyguide, that provide toolkits, workmethods, education and organizational support. All this to make sure the rural communities learn to live peacefully together with wildlife while still having a place for themselves to graze their cattle or farm the food they need.
The Enduimet WMA area, on the west slopes of Kilimanjaro just south of the border with Kenia, was our destination where we would be camping in the bush, do a cycling safari, see a traditional Maasai well, and visit a traditional Maasai tribe Boma. Even though I had been introduced to WMA work by Honeyguide, it was an enriching, eye-opening and rewarding trip. Enjoy the picture here below.
Asante sana.
