On the Prowl with Robin Pope

Who They Are

The base for Robin Pope Safaris‘ operations is the small, riverside camp of Nkwali, which is close to the central Mfuwe area of South Luangwa National Park. Nkwali is one of  Luangwa ’s few camps that is accessible all year round. Further north, Robin Pope’s two substantial, luxurious seasonal bush camps are the much lauded Tena Tena (tented) and Nsefu. Like Nkwali, they offer 4×4 game drives and walking safaris.

Nkwali by Night

A River View, Nkwali

For small groups and families, RPS runs two stylish safari houses, both close to Nkwali: the two-bedroom Robin’s House and the four-bedroom Luangwa Safari House and both come equipped with their own staff (chef, guides, and 4WD vehicles)  so you may set your own schedules.

Perhaps the most famous holidays from Robin Pope Safaris are their walking safaris, which utilize small  camps, walk-in tents, mattresses on the ground (with fine linens), shared bucket shower, bush loos). These ‘mobiles’ are organized about 18-24 months in advance, and often sell out swiftly; they run on fixed dates through the year. The properties offer game drives, walking, and boating, all with excellent guides.

A Robin Pope Specialty, Walks in the Wild

What They Are Doing

The Kawaza School Fund focuses on education in the Nsefu Chiefdom (an area in the South Luangwa section of Zambia).  Efforts are aimed at building schools, paying for teachers in order to improve the children-to-teacher ratio.  The government does not provide adequate teachers for schools, and there is a shortage generally in the country. Also, it is hard to get teachers to come to the rural areas.

They prefer towns, where there is electricity and water. The fund also provides educational equipment and sponsors 50 children to do their secondary and tertiary education. Only basic education is free. There are no secondary schools in the area, and no colleges, so anyone going to either has to find boarding, which is very expensive.  Many poor rural families and the increasing number of AIDS orphans cannot afford to go beyond basic schooling. The fund also has a volunteer program, where qualified people from abroad come and stay at one of the schools and teach.

A Zambian Specialty, Lots of Wildlife

Robin Pope Safaris was the founding member of the Luangwa Safari Association Medical Fund. The lodges in the area pool money and organize for a volunteer doctor to live there and work at the local clinic. Over the last ten years the scheme has raised money to renovate the clinic, build new staff houses, and, whenever there is a need, buy or provide medication for epidemics. Do they also pay for other medicines? Not unless a situation gets desperate. The government provides monthly drug allowance to the clinic.

A Tent Maybe, But Simple It's Not - Tena Tena

One of the New Malawi Lions

Malawi is known for many things – a gorgeous swimmable lake, friendly people – but a big selection of wildlife is not one of them. Top of travelers’ safari lists this Central African country has never been. Until now, that is … or until August. That’s when it will become home to four lions, and Malawi once again can be classified as a country that has the Big Five.

Two Leopards Before Being Set Free

Historically, lions were common in Malawi’s south, but by the early 1960s scouts were recording only one cat every 100 patrol days. Serious poaching depleted their numbers, and there have been no reports of lions in the region since the 1980s. Although the occasional lion is seen in Liwonde National Park, further north in the country, it is believed that they come across the border from Mozambique and are not permanent.

The four cats arriving in August are being donated by South African National Parks to the 70,000-hectare Majete Wildlife Reserve in the Lower Shire River Valley. That will complete the Big Five – right now there are elephant, rhino, buffalo and (from very recently) leopard. The non-profit African Parks has been resurrecting Majete since it took over management in 2003. Since then Majete has been fenced and infrastructure developed, and at least 12 different species and more than 2500 animals introduced. The safety provided by the perimeter fence and a law-enforcement program, as well as the abundance of prey, has created an environment where lions can once again thrive.

A Leopard's New Home, Majete

Last October, two leopards were brought from South Africa, and then in December, two more. As for the lions, African Parks announced in a statement, “Healthy animals at the beginning of their reproductive lives will be selected … and the intricate relocation process will involve weeks of quarantine on both sides of the border. It will also be a costly operation with holding facilities having to be erected and flights chartered to transport the predators to their new home.”

It has taken many people and companies to achieve these translocations, and one of them is Robin Pope Safaris, which owns the recently opened luxury Mkulumadzi Lodge in Majete (as well as other great safari operations in Africa) and contributes to African Parks. Without people and businesses like them, the good works could never happen.

Butterfly and Hot Pinks

Neato! Animal Block Height Charts for Kids

At A World Different we sometimes come across companies that are inextricably linked to tourism. They start because of tourism, and tourism and tourists become part of their lifeblood. A great example of this is Tribal Textiles in Mfuwe, Zambia.

Established in 1991 by Gillie Lightfoot and a few local women, Tribal Textiles started making gorgeous hand-painted fabrics and selling them to lodges in the area, including Norman Carr Safaris, Flat Dogs Camp, and Robin Pope Safaris. Then sales went further afield, to Tongabezi at the Victoria Falls.

In turn, the lodges started selling Tribal Textiles’ products in their gift shops, and even then visitors couldn’t get enough. The Tribal Textiles workshop in Mfuwe has, as a result, became a regular stop for visitors to see where these stunning textiles come from and how they are hand-painted and by whom.

More shopping continued at the factory, and, as one would expect with such desirable products, people wanted to sell them in other countries too. Now Tribal Textiles’ goods – whose product line includes bags, cushion covers, and more, in a growing array of styles – are sold in more than 20 countries. (If you’re interested, here’s a list of suppliers).

Like It? Ask for 'Tribal Art, Fire'

Business has grown so much that what started as a sustainable project now supports other charities, including a nearby school, Malimba, which has over 160 pupils, many of them orphaned by AIDS.

'African Circles, Chocolate Blue'

Nor does it end there. About 11 years ago Suzie Saunders found herself employed by Tribal Textiles as design and production manager. While there she met Gillie’s brother, James Lightfoot, they fell in love, got married, and moved to Likoma Island in Malawi, where they now own and run the fabulous Kaya Mawa Lodge. Taking up the textile idea, Suzie started Katundu, hiring  single mothers selected from the local orphan program, where they made beaded textiles, linens, tablecloths, and much more.

Katundu now employs 26 women and has branched out into making beautiful interior pieces, such as wall art, lighting accessories, mosquito net ties, and baskets.  Craftsmen from all over Malawi have been invited to come to the island and teach the Katundu employees other traditional Malawian crafts using local resources, such as mats made with baobab string and beads made of local mud clay.

Lodges that now show off Katundu accessories include Tongabezi, Chongwe River House, Kaya Mawa, and  Tangala, the exclusive villa at Tongabezi.

'Wassu, Tutti Fruity.' Of Course It Is!

And check out the video of Tribal Textiles at

Tribal Textiles, Zambia from Will Benson on Vimeo.

Singita Lebombo

Is it possible for a travel destination to be luxurious, hot (as in magazine-worthy), and sustainable? If anyone proves it, Singita does.

This African-based company has properties that go a long way to show that their hearts and minds are in the right place – they care about where they are and what they are doing. Travel is their business, but a business that has to last and in a country that has to last. Singita Grumeti, in Tanzania, has virtually turned what used to be a virtual wasteland (after years of illegal hunting and poaching) into an Eden. Bordering on the Serengeti, the 350,000 acres now have as good as you’ll get animal-wise (and probably even better than) in the iconic park next-door.

Sabora Tented Camp, Grumeti

Working with the community surrounding Grumeti is as much a part of the day-to-day as it is in Pamushana,  in Zimbabwe. For years now the property, which lies adjacent to the stunning and barely visited Gonarezhou park, has served thousands of meals daily to local children. Singita’s community work dates back to 1998 already. Whether it is buying products locally, supporting a cooking academy for staff (watch the video), or contributing to local schools, the company is doing it.

At the ever-popular Lebombo and Sweni lodges in Kruger Park, South Africa, Singita has tried to emphasize low-impact design, creating stunning rooms made of glass, steel, and reeds, perched singly on a ridge. An ongoing program of monitoring the wildlife and land around Singita’s first lodges, Ebony and Boulders lodges, in Sabi Sand, South Africa, endeavors to keep the much-used park seemingly untouched.

Children at Pamushana

At each of these properties, the work with low-impact design, the community, and the wildlife goes on daily and never ends. And that Singita doesn’t forget.

Kafue River

Certain countries and hotels are repeatedly brought to our attention for the way they train locals, pay for schools, invest in local artists, buy medicine, fund anti-poaching – if it’s not Costa Rica, it’s any number of lodges in Kenya or a resort in Indonesia. But one rather unusual candidate has started popping up in recent months – Zambia.

The Bushcamp Company's Chindeni Camp, South Luangwa

Until a decade ago, Zambia was relatively unknown to travelers looking at Africa as a first-time destination. Its economy small, it didn’t have the resources to fund the kind of international tourism campaigns of South Africa or Tanzania. So it has always come across as an also-ran, second or third choice. Its best national parks, South Luangwa and Lower Zambezi, have also never had the cachet of the Serengeti or the Masai Mara.

Sausage Tree Camp, Lower Zambezi

In a way, though, this off-the-radarness might have contributed to Zambia’s charm today. There are 19 national parks, none of them nearly as crammed with lodges as Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa, with the competition good and yet friendly. The philosophy among operators seems to be less about being cut-throat than about working together towards a common goal. And the goal is to take care of the country without and within.

The SLCS on Patrol

First in a notable series of initiatives is Zambian Horizons, a group of lodges that, despite being competitors, pool their resources to publicize the country. At this year’s Indaba, the huge annual African travel-trade powwow in Durban, South Africa, these camps walked away with most Best Of awards. Working together has worked for them individually.

Inside the country the South Luangwa Conservation Society (SLCS) keeps tabs on conservation at every level. More than a dozen camps and lodges participate, including Flatdogs, Robin Pope Safaris, and Norman Carr Safaris. (See more). Each camp often does its own work too, generating small offshoot projects, and offering trips to local communities or craftspeople. Robin Pope Safaris is a case in point.

The Victoria Falls, Zambia

As in any country with parkland and a burgeoning population nearby clamoring for land, there is a knock-on effect. Animals get poached for commercial reasons, for sustenance, or for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some get shot for damaging farmers’ crops.

The School Gets New Chairs

By the early ’90’s, the Zambian Wildlife Authority was struggling to tackle the problem of increased poaching. Local tour operators and lodges offered to help ZAWA by providing scouts, whose salaries needed to be paid and who required uniforms, vehicles, and training. For this they carried out fundraising drives. And so was born the Rapid Action Team – better known as Ratz.

Planting New Trees

Over time the lodge operators and the Ratz team realized there was a lot more they could do, especially in terms of the conflict between humans and wildlife, education, and wildlife rescue and rehabilitation. Ratz became the SLCS, and its programs have expanded and flourished. In 2009, it even started a mini-marathon, which drew scouts, police, farmers, schoolchildren, teachers, and members of the Zambian Air Force. At the last event there were more than 300 runners. This year, it launched an Eco Awards program that is focused solely on local works.

Project Luangwa, meanwhile, is a charitable organization supported by five safari operators in South Luangwa – besides Flatdogs and Robin Pope, there is Kafunta River Lodge, Shenton Safaris, and Crocodile Valley Camp. It aims to help local communities improve their long-term economic prospects while also avoiding a negative impact on the environment and wildlife. By developing and improving schools, creating a vocational training center, and supporting the micro-financing of small businesses, it tries to give families the chance of a lasting and sustainable income.

Working with Chilies

Among Project Luangwa’s innovative projects is one to keep elephants and other wildlife away from crops by using chilies. Yes, chilies. The peppers are used to make fences and are also added to bricks made of elephant dung that are burned at nighttime to keep animals away. Locals are offered chili seedlings to grow themselves. Project Luangwa also builds schools (check out its website to get an idea of its range of activities).

On the Zambezi River

In the Lower Zambezi national park, SLCS’s equivalent is Conservation Lower Zambezi. Members include Sausage Tree Camp and Chiawa. For the past 8 years it has been funded largely by the Danish Embassy, which has allowed it to buy a plane and establish a base camp outside the park boundaries. From its environmental education center, it runs a mobile education unit, media promotion, and safari guide training.

That many travelers to Zambia don’t know about these projects says a lot about the lodges and operators that fund and run them. They could shout their achievements from the rooftops, but they rather focus on giving their guests a great safari, a great time, and a great lodge. Doing good things for the locals they do behind the scenes. For them it’s all in a day’s work.

- Caren Banks

Flatdogs is, in this day of high-end safari lodges, a good and affordable alternative. Owner managed, the camp overlooks the Luangwa River in the South Luangwa National Park.

The Treehouse Master Bedroom

With its choice of chalets, safari tents, and the exclusive Jackal-berry Treehouse, Flatdogs is ideal for many a traveler, from honeymooner to family (it is one of the few children-friendly camps) to diehard return visitor. Guests can drive themselves to the camp or fly into Mfuwe airport and start their safari from there. Many safari camps and lodges have a set menu (albeit with one or two choices per course), but Flatdogs has an a la carte menu that allows guests to choose their meals daily.

The Treehouse

The quality of the safari guiding is well known in the region. The guides, eight of them at present, who all come from the area, are a fund of information not only on indigenous culture but also on the history of the area and local conservation practices.

What They Are Doing

Chiyembekezo is a school that was set up entirely by local people for orphaned and vulnerable children. Kelvin, the founder, was concerned about the number of children he found walking the streets, fishing with their fathers, and generally not attending school. With their own money, he and a couple of other local businessmen hired a teacher (a fantastically committed woman named Dailes, who they paid when they could) and started a school in a small house. From there it has grown, and when it was providing education to fifty children five mornings a week Kelvin asked Flatdogs advice about raising funds.

Impressed with his commitment and initiative, the camp happily offered to help. Through combined fund=raising efforts, the teacher’s salary is paid, uniforms for the children are bought, and educational resources provided. The school uses St Agnes’ Anglican Church for classes, and Flatdogs recently helped install electricity and repainted the interior of the building. Future plans include the construction of a small secure storeroom, the upgrading of the playground, and sending Dailes for further training.

Flatdogs has also assisted Mfuwe Secondary School by building two classroom blocks, and it is raising funds for items such as new desks. At present Flatdogs repairs all broken desks from schools in the area.

Fresh from the Garden

Produce at Flatdogs is locally grown, and the camp has helped finance the installation of a water pump to help a local named Rodgers with his irrigation. In its own garden, the camp grows herbs and vegetables and will be helping Mfuwe Secondary School do the same to encourage kids to learn about conservation-savvy farming practices and about the variety of fruit and vegetables suitable for the local soil.

Wake Up!

Flatdogs makes a careful point of not buying only locally. “Buy too much of a scarce commodity,” it says, “and prices rise beyond the reach of local people. So we try to balance our needs, the demands of the business, and the prosperity of local people.” When Flatdogs requires lots of a product in short supply, it encourages Rodgers to grow plenty of it. So every tomato in camp will be local, but none of the fish will be, because it is a valuable protein source for locals and, says Flatdogs, “we want to keep prices down.”

At Chiyembekezo School

Flatdogs is involved in various women’s projects promoting women’s rights and independence by encouraging continued education and careers. It works with Project Luangwa through Eunice Nakachinda, who runs small projects in local villages, particularly with the aim of getting girls into school. Most girls are keen to learn, but they are often required to stay at home to help the family, so her project is one of educating the villagers on the value of education for all children.

Rodgers at Work

The camp also takes about 100 local children on safari each year to teach them the benefits of animals and to show them how peaceful they are in their own environments, to dispel the fear they have of animals who wander into villages at night. Each of Flatdog’s eight guides takes a vehicle full of kids out in the low season. The children are usually in their last two years of school, and most of them belong to the conservation clubs at their school. “We target these children because a couple of other local tourism operators offer something similar but for younger age groups.”

Besides solar heating for water, Flatdogs has some innovative recycling programs. Paper and cardboard go to schools to turn into bricks for cooking. Cans go to Mango Tree Crafts (based at Tribal Textiles), who use them to make a variety of quirky products. Glass and plastic go to Lusaka.

Click here for a Tribal Textiles video

Watch the Trailer and $10 Goes to Save Lions

It’s a fact learned by few people who go on safari. They don’t realize that the animals they are watching, enjoying, enthralled by, might not be there for their own children to one day see. And that’s what the Jouberts, who have been filming predators in southern Africa for twenty years, mostly for National Geographic, are trying to do with The Last Lions. They want to make people aware of the beauty and irreplaceable richness that will die when the predator cats do.

The Jouberts follow one lioness, who, with her three cubs, flees a pride of females and settles on Duba island in Botswana. The rest of the movie is about her battle to keep her family alive, to feed them, and to fend off attacks by other cats and a massive herd of buffalo. It’s a story of Africa’s wildlife, heartbreaking at times, but it reminds you what’s at stake. Lions in all their glory.

Financed by National Geographic, which has launched Cause an Uproar in order to spread information about the plight of lions.  Also, The Big Cat Initiative, which was started by the Jouberts and National Geographic, is working in Botswana, Cameroon, Kenya, and other countries, to try and halt the decrease in the number of cats. As Dereck Joubert says, “We are fighting for one cat at a time.”

But the Jouberts also do their own share.

As stakeholders in the Great Plains Conservation, which owns properties in Botswana, Tanzania, and Kenya – such as Duba Plains, where the movie was filmed, and Ol Donyo Lodge – the company puts money back into conservation and cat programs and anti-poaching. To support their company and its properties is to support wildlife.

Amongst the Mopane Trees

Who They Are

Singita Pamushana is situated in one of the last remaining pristine game reserves in the southeast corner of Zimbabwe, the Malilangwe Wildlife Reserve. The reserve boasts some of the greatest varieties of mammal and bird species on the African continent, due to the 38 different habitat and ecological zones found on the property.

Overlooking Malilangwe Dam

Nestling beneath the trees, the lodge incorporates the natural environment, and the forest-like architecture

View from the Main Suite

enhances views of the pool, the lush gardens, and the lake below. Pamushana Lodge comprises six luxury suites and one villa, each offering incredible views of the Malilangwe Dam. The lodge design is elegant, contemporary, and bold to match the sheer majestic scale of the landscape. Lodge facilities include indoor and open-air dining rooms, three lounges, and an impressively stocked wine cellar, as well as a bush spa and two communal heated swimming pools with a Jacuzzi. Activities at Malilangwe are tailored to suit clients interests, and include game drives, exciting spotlit night game drives, walking trips, visiting Bushman caves and paintings, canoeing and fishing in the well-stocked lake. There is also a tennis court.

The Painted Dogs of Pamushana

What They Are Doing

Singita Pamushana is the tourism arm of the Malilangwe Trust, a not-for-profit organization that was established to manage an extraordinary wilderness area abutting the Gonarezhou National Park in south eastern Zimbabwe.

Singita manages the lodge on behalf of the trust and all proceeds are used for conservation and community outreach and development programs. Since its inception, the trust has been committed to environmental conservation, with a special focus on rhino, hartebeest, sable, wild dog and the habitat. The conservation team is, as in other Singita properties, involved in the ongoing monitoring, protection, and development of the biological diversity of the reserve. A captive breeding program is currently being designed to ensure the safe breeding of disease-tolerant, endangered species for reintroduction into the reserve and other conservation areas. To date, it has reintroduced diverse wildlife, including the black and white rhino.

A Cornucopia of Africa, Singita's Trandemark

The trust is also involved in supporting projects allied to its conservation efforts. Such support includes introducing donor funding for the Frankfurt Zoological Society’s partnership with Zimbabwe’s Parks and Wildlife Management to rehabilitate  neighboring Gonarezhou National Park; facilitating rhino anti-poaching initiatives; and the injection of funding to enable the widespread provision of rabies vaccines to the government veterinary department. Another extraordinary responsibility of Malilangwe is the protection and preservation of over 100 San historical rock art painting sites which are found on the reserve.

The Lodge

Singita Pamushana operates – the same as its sister property in Tanzania, Singita Grumeti – on a very unique basis. The lodge was established for the sole purpose of generating income to assist in funding the conservation and community outreach programs coordinated by the Malilangwe Trust. The Neighbor Outreach Program is the vehicle through which Singita Pamushana and the trust focus on community development.

A cornerstone project to respond to a critical situation facing local schools is the provision of a fortified meal of a corn-soy blend, in porridge form, to some 20,000 children per school day, most of whom are under the age of five.

Children in Line for Breakfast

The NOP is also focused on food security, a critical issue at this time in Zimbabwe’s history, and facilitates the establishment of irrigation projects to enable vulnerable communities to grow their own food and supply drinking water. In addition, the NOP is actively involved in the provision of community infrastructure, including the building and equipping of clinics and school blocks.

In Their Own Words

“With a vision to securing and preserving an increasing number of pristine locations, Singita has a firm commitment to maintaining the sustainability of each property by continuing to build upon our three pillars of wildlife conservation, eco-friendly tourism, and community support. Singita is the Shangaan word for ‘a place of miracles.’ and it is intended that this applies to all who are in contact with it – whether guest, staff, local communities, or the wildlife and natural habitat of the Singita reserves and their lodges.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iks8c5ELnxk

Setting Free the Rhino

Called the most significant wildlife relocation in East Africa in 50 years, the first five of 32 critically endangered Eastern Black Rhino have been shipped from South Africa to the Serengeti in Tanzania. And one of the main reasons it has happened is Singita Grumeti.

The rhino population in Serengeti has fallen from 1000 to less than 70 in the past four decades. A half dozen of these rhino that were taken from Tanzania to South Africa in the early 1960s have thrived, and it is from that herd that the translocated animals originated.

The world’s population of black rhino, once 65,000, fell to an all-time low of 2,410 in 1995, mostly due to poaching. The figure now stands at 4.230, although Tanzania only has three percent of them, a mere 123.

Waiting for the Rhinos to be Offloaded, Seronera Airport

Singita Grumeti, which has done an unprecedented job of resuscitating an area almost the size of Kenya’s Maasai Mara with game that had virtually disappeared from there, turning it into an Eden, keeps on working to replenish the land with game. This latest effort, which will cost some $7 million over two years, has been done in collaboration with the Frankfurt Zoological Society and Tanzanian National Parks.

Future Conservationists in Class

Teaching the inhabitants of a wilderness area, especially the youth, about the nature around them seems to be so obvious, it’s a wonder more lodges haven’t done it in before now. Make the people aware of the riches they have – and that can benefit them – and the lodge will benefit as well. It’s a win-win equation.

To this end, in 2009, Singita Grumeti Reserves established an environmental education center in the Sasakwa foothills 3 km from Makundusi village, in Tanzania. Its goal was to offer an education to the youth from 58 secondary schools, as well as the community leaders of neighboring villages.

The one-week course is aimed at equipping them with relevant information on wildlife conservation, the lifeline of the area’s activities, thus enabling the communities to become increasingly aware of their responsibilities towards wildlife and the environment. The first group consisted of 12 students, and since then the center has conducted 8 training sessions attended by a total of 96 secondary school students (both girls and boys) as well as 16 of their teachers  from the two targeted districts of Serengeti and Bunda.

Students cover basic environmental conservation – the functioning of the ecosystem, threats to its sustainability within the local arena – and they are encouraged and equipped to pursue their livelihoods in a more sustainable way and to devise effective solutions. On returning to their schools, students have established and revived Environmental Conservation Clubs. Currently 8 clubs are active and have, in turn, successfully trained 875 new members. This ensures that a total of 971 youths have benefited from receiving a basic environmental training.

Cycling at Sabora Tented Camp, Tanzania

If Singita Grumeti Reserves blows its own trumpet during the training, it can be forgiven. The luxury property has done incredible conservation work in the Grumeti reserve, turning back an environmental clock that was quickly running out of time. The habitat and wildlife have been richly regenerated over the past few years. This includes at least 40 species of herbivores, 25 species of large carnivores and 400 species of birds. If students have to learn from someone, they couldn’t have better teachers.