Volcanoes Safaris (VS) has been the pioneer in rebuilding mountain gorilla tourism in post-conflict Uganda since 1997 and in Rwanda since 2000. It is the only safari company to have signed the UN Kinshasa Declaration on Great Apes, and the only company to have built its own eco-lodges near three mountain gorilla parks and a threatened chimpanzee population in Kyambura Gorge, Uganda. Conceived and built by visionary conservationist Praveen Moman, Volcanoes Safaris boasts four unique luxury lodges – Virunga Lodge, Volcanoes National Park Rwanda, Mount Gahinga Lodge, Mgahinga National Park Uganda, Bwindi Lodge, Bwindi Impenetrable Forest Uganda, and Kyambura Gorge Lodge, Queen Elizabeth National Park Uganda. All of the lodges are sensitive to local culture and aesthetics, echoing local traditional design, whilst providing all the luxury modern conveniences for a supremely comfortable stay.
Project Summary:
To complement its activities VS established the Volcanoes Safaris Partnership Trust (VSPT) in 2009; a non-profit organization that undertakes community and conservation activities in the areas that neighbour all four of our lodges (see www.volcanoessafaris.com/non-profit). VSPT aims are to create long-term, self-sustaining projects that will enrich the livelihoods of local communities, promote the conservation of Great Apes, restore natural habitats and work with communities and institutions to reduce human-wildlife conflict. The objectives of the VSPT are achieved through regular donations from Volcanoes Safaris Ltd, who contribute a voluntary donation of $100 from every full cost safari purchased, so that tourism contributes to this vital work.
Project Background:
Since it was founded, Volcanoes Safaris has developed a responsible and clear vision to create a symbiotic relationship between controlled sensitive tourism, conservation and protection of habitats and most of all finding ways to ensure communities get a livelihood from tourism. We believe that the long-term success of gorilla tourism and the survival of the great apes lies in recognizing the importance of empowering local communities surrounding the Great Ape parks.
No other safari company has invested so heavily in the Albertine Rift Valley region – we are the only Uganda safari and Lodge Company to set up its own registered non-profit vehicle to support communities and conservation. For more than a decade, our pioneering approach has won us great recognition and respect internationally for leading the way, and developing the tourism product in Uganda and Rwanda.
Project Implementation:
Through job creation, capacity building, tourism income and our VSPT projects, we ensure that the communities surrounding all four of our lodges get direct and indirect benefits from great ape tourism. VSPT currently employs 15 staff – we employ train and empower local people to be the core workers and each lodge has a Graduate Ugandan/Rwandan Administrator. Over the last four years VSPT has dedicated over 100 acres of land towards conservation and community projects and has spent $310,000 on projects ranging from supporting a local school near our Virunga Lodge in Rwanda; reclaiming a wetland, setting up a buffer zone between communities and chimpanzees, setting up a coffee processing facility and a youth training café all at our Kyambura Gorge Lodge in Uganda; harvesting and processing tea at our Bwindi Lodge in Uganda; and creating a unique program to share the culture of the Batwa pygmies and give them a livelihood at our Mount Gahinga Lodge in Uganda.
To ensure the long-term success and self-sufficiency of each project, we focus on the specific needs and cultures of the local community. Every group we work with also invests in their own future by contributing their time and effort. It is our belief that partnering with communities towards a better future, not merely funding them, results in successful self-sustaining projects. In the past three years we have built several sustaining community projects that are run by and support over 100 local families. Our goal is to optimize these projects through capacity building, outreach and in partnership with tourism, so that they can develop and continue to grow based on their own success.
Project Outcomes & Conclusions:
At the level of external communities, we believe we achieved many successes both in terms of providing economic benefit, in improving skills, in creating community organisations, in supporting deprived communities such as the Batwa, in reclaiming land and setting up buffer zones which alleviate the effects of crop raiding on community land and teaching new skills.
For example, the Kyambura Women’s Coffee Cooperative which is made up of 12 local women, several of whom are widowed and 1/3 are living with HIV, have been trained in quality organic coffee processing by the VSPT, which has provided them with valuable skills and added income. Visitors are welcomed at the processing station, where they can sample and buy their coffee.
With permits to see the gorillas costing $750 per person an hour, we’re also helping the bottom line in terms of great ape conservation and the benefits that brings to the people living in the shadows of the Virungas. In just 2013, Volcanoes clients contributed over US$ 1.2 million to Rwanda through permits. On top of all of this is the powerful support we’ve had from guests who’ve stayed and spread the word.
In conclusion, conservation and tourism must find a way of delivering economic livelihoods if they are to stay relevant in the dramatic changes going on in Africa in this century. Africans too want a share of what we take as a right - education, health economic development and a better future for their children. All of us involved in this area will need to find new economic, business ways of working to safeguard the great ape species and protected areas. These efforts will need to focus on the people and communities and only then will the species and the protected areas survive. And that is the Volcanoes great ape ecotourism model. As part of this philosophy, we’ve just created a new cultural experience with the landless, disenfranchised Batwa pygmies near Mount Gahinga Lodge in Uganda so they can earn money from tourism. On both sides of the Virungas we continue to deepen our practical partnership with local people.
Relevant Case Studies:
The Batwa community is a minority hunter-gatherer group, thought to be one of the oldest peoples in the Central African Region, who traditionally lived within the forests of Mount Gahinga. When Mgahinga National Park was gazetted in 1991, to promote mountain gorilla conservation, they were forced to abandon their traditional way of life and subsequently suffered severe socio-economic problems. This community remains marginalized and is one of the poorest communities in Uganda.
Today, the Batwa community are still landless, largely unemployed and have little or no education. Many in this community have slipped into alcoholism and begging in order to cope with their situation.
The Volcanoes Safaris Partnership Trust (VSPT) has partnered with this community to revive their traditions, improve their livelihoods as well as afford them the opportunity to benefit directly from tourism in the region. A culture and heritage site was developed where elders re-enact forest life so that the young Batwa and visitors can learn about and understand their cultural identity and history.
The VSPT has set up and manages regular traditional dance performances in the local community as a way for them to interact and integrate with other members of the community; a vocational centre to provide a place where Batwa women can learn marketable skills to sustain themselves and their families; and the heritage trail at Mount Gahinga Lodge.
With no land to call their own, the main priority for the local Batwa Community is access to land. The VSPT has agreed to help the Batwa form a Land Acquisition Committee; in order to consolidate their desire for acquiring land into more defined goals.
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