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Ecotourism recognized as a
Top Priority for Hoopoe Safaris
An East African
safari operator based in Tanzania".
The 2004
Condé Nast Traveler's Ecotourism Award for
Best Operator in the World goes to Hoopoe Safaris
for their continued and outstanding community-based
Ecotourism partnerships across East Africa and
specifically Northern Tanzania. (July
edition)
Throughout the
ten-year history of Condé Nast Traveler's
Ecotourism Awards, they have recognized properties,
tour operators, and destinations committed to
preserving the local environment, assisting and
employing the people who live there, and educating
the guests who visit. This year's winners were
chosen from nearly 100 applications that were
screened by their editors, after which a panel of
industry judges voted on the finalists.
 It
is recognized with this recent accolade that Hoopoe
Safaris [together with Kirurumu Tented Camps
and Lodges] it totally dedicated to the
protection of the environment and supporting
effective community partnerships and sustainable
tourism projects.
Headed by Kenyan
born Peter Lindstrom, and Tanzanian Maasai, Steven
Laiser, Hoopoe is an East African safari outfitter
and tour company, owned and managed largely by
Africans. The company has gained its reputation by
offering the authentic "out of the way" African
experience of the traditional safari camp which
affords a close communion with nature, without
forsaking important creature comforts of the
timeless safaris under canvas. According to
Lindstrom, fundamental to an enjoyable and
rewarding safari is the knowledge, experience and
interaction of the guide. Accordingly, Hoopoe
pioneered the training of local guides in a much
broader range of subjects, such as geology,
anthropology, zoology, botany and, importantly,
also in the rich cultural life of East
Africa.
Hoopoe then went
further, or perhaps it would be more appropriate to
say, back, in developing walking and trekking
safaris away from the noise and distraction of
motor vehicles, to feel, hear, smell and experience
first hand the wonders of the African bush. From
here, Lindstrom and Laiser recognized the
significance of creating and developing sustainable
tourism, which would allow visitors from all
corners of the earth to witness this unique animal
spectacle of the great plains of Africa, without
spoiling the very thing they had come so far to
see. This could only be achieved by offering low
impact tourism on a sustainable basis and then only
by engaging the local communities in areas where
wildlife is still plentiful and environmental
degradation has been minimal.
The Maasai
pastoralists in particular had by virtue of their
culture and traditional herding way of life, helped
to preserve for mankind one of the greatest
wildlife spectacles on earth. Maasailand provides
huge areas that are essential dispersal zones and
migration corridors linking National Parks and Game
Reserves. Lindstrom went on to say it was essential
to forge ties with local villages as genuine
partners and help to empower them to share in the
development of this particular ecotourism concept,
whilst affording Tanzania's guests the opportunity
to marvel at and appreciate this wondrous natural
resource. The community-based partnerships which
they and a few other like minds have helped to
establish, will hopefully help to protect a fragile
environment and the great herds of the East African
Savannah ecosystems. Lindstrom says that the battle
is not yet won and a combination of a growing
population and pressure on dwindling land resources
add up to a formidable challenge, but a shift has
been made in the right direction.
The community earns
much needed direct annual income in return for
granting the rare privilege of a private concession
area to Hoopoe for their safari activities. In
addition, every visitor bed-night attracts a fee
paid directly to the community and Hoopoe has
engaged members of the local community as guides
and as trackers and Askaris. The community assumes
a responsibility to guard against alternative land
use, such as agriculture and charcoal manufacture,
and to prevent poaching. The income the communities
earn from tourism, Lindstrom notes, has been used
extensively for improving schools, building clinics
and improving safe water supplies. This formula
provides a truly win-win situation for all parties
concerned. Lindstrom remains passionate about his
vision that combines environmental care with
pragmatic commercial goals that benefit the
community and the national economy, whilst
preserving the precious nature with which Tanzania
is so well endowed.
Sustainability
is the key.
For information and
reservations regarding all safaris in East Africa,
Mountain Climbs, Zanzibar and the Swahili Coast,
contact your local tour operator and visit the
Hoopoe Safaris
website at www.hoopoe.com
"Conservation and
Community Development through Sustainable
Eco-tourism
Partnerships"
Hoopoe Safaris
United Kingdom Marketing Office:
Rupert Finch
Hatton, PO Box 278, Watford, Hertfordshire, WD19
4WH
Tel: +44 (0)1923
255462 Fax: +44 (0) 1923 255452
E:
hoopoeuk@aol.com
..www.hoopoe.com...www.cntraveler.com.
Rupert Finch Hatton
Hoopoe Safaris
Kirurumu Tented Camps & Lodges
Telephone +44 (0)1923 255462
Facsimile + 44 (0)1923 255452
"Conservation and Community
Development through Sustainable Ecotourism
Partnerships"
India
Street, Arusha, Tanzania.
Tel:
+255 (0) 27 2507011
information@hoopoe.com
Wilson
Airport, Nairobi, Kenya
Tel:
+254 (0) 2 604303
hoopoe@wananchi.com
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