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Safari tourism has stamped its mark indelibly on Africa. On the positive side safaris produce much needed foreign currency and employment. Safaris also put a premium on wildlife which would otherwise be shot for ivory, skins or food or simply pushed off the land to make way for subsistence farming. On the negative side large numbers of modern tourists demand an infrastructure that can degrade wilderness areas leaving the landscape criss-crossed with roads and speckled with lodges.

After independence, Kenya was seen as the safest, most stable country in post colonial Africa and shot into the market leading position. In the absence of effective government regulation, safari operators embarked on a free-for-all to cash in on the safari dollar. Huge hotel complexes sprang up in the middle of national parks and the day of the zebra-striped minibus dawned. Before long, disgruntled safari-goers were complaining that premium parks such as Masai Mara or Amboseli were so overcrowded, they provided an experience no more wild than a visit to a safari park at home.

Other countries benefited as Kenya began to lose its grip on the safari market. The next country to experience a safari boom was Zimbabwe but it too is now beginning to suffer the effects of over-expansion. Prime wildlife venues are beginning to look tired. Integral to the problem in the national parks is the lack of re-investment in wildlife by a government all too ready to grab its share of the proceeds.

The picture is by no means all bleak. The Botswana government’s policy of high cost/low volume tourism which has become the envy of other African states. Tourism lies in third place in Botswana’s revenue earning after its mining and beef industries. Seventeen per cent of the country’s surface area is designated as national parks and reserves with a further 22% registered as Wildlife Management areas. Botswana’s parks remain wonderfully unspoilt.

Travel in much of rural Zambia was considered unsafe in the late 80s and early 90s with the result that many of the areas now being opened up for safaris start with a relatively clean slate. The IUCN is advising the government on the development of strategic management plans. Early indications are encouraging. The number of lodges that may be built in a national park is being limited. Operators bidding for new sites have to submit detailed environmental impact surveys. There are limits on numbers of visitor beds, staff, vehicles and boats and in some cases lodges must be dismantled at the end of each season.

For a long time Kenyan authorities were preoccupied by the ravages of prolonged drought and poaching. Now, the new Director of the Kenya Wildlife Service, Nehemiah Rotich, is turning his attention to the problems of relieving the pressure on premium National Parks. Initiatives include a structured system of park entry fees, with higher fees for the most popular parks; opening up new safari circuits in the west and far north of Kenya; encouraging walking and riding safaris to lessen the numbers of vehicles; and promoting community co-operation schemes to incorporate community lands bordering national parks by giving the community a vested interest in the tourism revenue. The private sector is playing their part. The many private ranches that have opened for safaris are a direct response to the demand for undisturbed game viewing. Lewa Downs, one of the longest established of these, has established itself as a model for regional conservation by working with local communities to incorporate community owned land at Il Ngwesi and Namunyak within the Lewa Downs Conservation scheme thereby vastly increasing the protected range of wildlife in the region.

On a much broader scale, the plans for ambitious transfrontier conservation areas across the continent promoted by the Peace Parks Foundation may see the bringing together of vast areas of land, currently under a variety of land tenure ranging from farms and mines to national parks and community land, that will significantly increase the surface area of land managed for wildlife protection. The challenge will be to realise the potentially huge added premium that this scheme promises and take the pressure off the current honey-pot destinations without destroying areas that have so far remained as pristine wilderness.

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