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.

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.

Greystoke Mahale

Who They Are

Nomad Tanzania is a small owner-run safari company, based just outside Arusha. It has an eclectic mix of luxury camps spread across the country. Greystoke Mahale, at the foot of the Mahale Mountains and on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, is a fantastic base from which to view chimpanzees and enjoy the clear blue waters of the lake.  Chada Katavi is miles from anywhere in wildest Tanzania.  Nduara Loliondo is a mobile camp that moves its African-style yurts across the Loliondo area of the Serengeti Eco-system to wherever the best game viewing can be found.  The Serengeti Safari Camp moves around another part of the Serengeti.

Ndura Loliondo Under the Stars

Sand Rivers Selous

Accommodation at Sand Rivers Selous is in spacious open-fronted cottages made of stone and thatch, raised up on the banks of the Rufiji with amazing views out across the river. The new Kiba Point camp, four cottages  above the river, is for exclusive use. Nomad also manages Vamizi Island in Mozambique.

In Mahale National Park

What They Are Doing

When Nomad Tanzania was created in 2003, bringing the above camps under one umbrella, it committed to support three trusts that had already been established by the founders of the companies that made up the new Nomad Tanzania. These trusts related to the areas in which the individual companies were operating and were all born organically as a result of continual contact with the issues in the different areas. The Nomad Trust now provides administrative and fund raising-support for the following affiliated trusts, and is a totally non-profit making organization. Nomad Tanzania contributes $3 per camp bednight to the trust. Any funds given to the individual projects are entirely committed to them.

Conservation

The Selous Rhino Trust works to secure the safety of the handful of endangered rhino left in this area (down from 3,000  in the 1970s).  A team of 12 rangers and a rhino specialist are based here working together with the Wildlife Division of the Tanzanian government.

Community

Nomad Tanzania also works closely with communities in the Loliondo area, specifically Ololosokwan and Piyaya, two villages it has had close ties with for a number of years. Through donations and company contributions, it has targeted education as one of the prime areas where a difference can be made. In addition, in partnership with Piyaya village, it has contributed fifty percent of the Women’s Home Industry Fund, which loans money to women to help them start up a self-sufficient home industry of their choice. It helps the MIMAMPI honey-gathering project, which has helped reduce hunting in the Katavi and Rukwa areas. In Ololosokwan, it has purchased over $1,000 worth of school books and kept the school Landcruiser rolling with mechanical input and spares. Along with other stakeholders who operate in the area, the camping fees that guests at Nomad’s safari camps pay go to the fund, which so far has helped to send over 70 children to secondary school.

Black Rhino, Endangered Especially in the Selous

The Tongwe Trust, founded officially in 2006, supports community-based projects throughout Tongwe land, from Village Forest Reserves of extraordinary biodiversity in western Tanzania, to boat building and eco-tourism, to schools, dispensaries and village microenterprise. The trust is also collecting an invaluable archive of Tongwe folklore, herbal medicine, and music.

In 2008, Nomad became the first company in the country to have a complete carbon footprint audit done on all its camps and offices.

Singita Grumeti Reserves offers an unparalleled safari experience teeming with magnificent wildlife encounters on the western corridor of the Serengeti. This vast private concession comprises an exclusive trio of luxury lodges positioned ideally on the epic migratory route traversed annually by more than a million wildebeest. Each of the lodges offers a unique experience:

One of the Lounges at Sasakwa

Located on top of a hill, Sasakwa Lodge delivers dramatic, elevated views across the endless plains. The lodge is built in the grand style of an English manor home and comprises nine luxurious cottages and one villa, which are among the most deluxe accommodations ever built in East Africa. The long elegant hallways and inviting sitting rooms are faithful to the architecture and furnishings of the most splendid colonial-era homes.

The Unbeatable Sabora Tented Camp

Sabora Tented Camp celebrates flat open space as far as the eye can see. It is a lavish tented camp on the Serengeti plains, decorated in 1920’s grand campaign style. The nine lavish tents are air-conditioned and feature a bedroom and reading area, bathroom with bath and outdoor shower, viewing deck with Swarovski spotting scope, and a library lounge tent. Each tented suite is a swath of pale cloth, light as desert sand. Curtains of gauze and silk billow like the clouds that blow across the savanna each afternoon.

Faru Faru Lodge is built on a gently sloping hill above a beautiful waterhole and the Grumeti River. The suites and the main lodge, modern interpretations of the traditional Maasai home, blend unobtrusively into the undisturbed landscape. The lodge consists of nine suites.  There is a dedicated family suite ideal for a family of four.

Faru Faru Lodge

What Are They Doing

The Grumeti Community and Wildlife Conservation Fund, a not-for-profit organization, manages and conserves the 350,000-acre concession (that’s as big as the Maasai Mara in Kenya).

Riding in Singita Grumeti

Conservation

The Singita Grumeti Reserves are an integral part of the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem. The tourism operation exists solely to sustain these unique areas of land and their resident wildlife. The long-term intention is to guarantee the sustainability of these strategically important conservation areas. Controlling the poaching in the area was the first priority facing Singita Grumeti Reserves in 2002. Today, 120 game scouts, mostly ex-poachers, form Singita Game Reserves’ anti-poaching units. After five years in action, anti-poaching initiatives have had an unprecedented impact, and poaching has become virtually unknown in the reserves.

The scouts are also responsible for documenting wildlife presence and movement as well as any other data of biological importance within the concession areas. Ongoing data collection, coordinated and analyzed by the organization’s research biologist, has revealed a rapid and steady increase in resident game as a direct result of increased security and improved habitats. For example, the number of buffalo increased from 600 in 2003 to over 3,800 in 2008, while the number of giraffes went from 331 in 2003 to 803 in 2008.

Buffalo on the Serengeti

Another project being undertaken, this time in collaboration with the Tanzanian government, is to reintroduce the East African sub-species of black rhinoceros. The program involves the introduction of two captive-bred rhino as well as the repatriation of a wild population of 34 others.

A new Environment Education Center has also been launched. It offers children from 51 local schools an intensive five-day program on the Serengeti ecosystem. They are taught about environmental issues, whether it’s local or global, and given an understanding of  the meaning of ‘protected areas’. The program aims to focus on explaining the link between creating a better place for wildlife, the environment, and the community, and tries to give them the tools to take action in conserving the wild spaces of Grumeti. This initiative also focuses on promoting the wise use of land, so that it can be used for many generations to come. The thinking is that if the youth are encouraged to understand the place in which they live, a spirit of conservation will be created.

Community

For the past six years, the Grumeti Fund has invested money, energy and the expertise of its Community Outreach Program team into supporting community projects in the Serengeti and Bunda districts, which share a reserve border with Singita Grumeti Reserves. The Grumeti Fund supports an Access to Fresh water program, small agricultural businesses, bee-keeping and fish farming initiatives, as well as chicken breeding and egg production. Singita Grumeti Reserves also continues to invest strongly in the education of local youth through its scholarship fund, support of local schools and the newly established Environment Education Center for Youth.

Natta Secondary School

Tent at Lukula

Lukula Camp, also known as The Selous Project, is located within a 300,000-acre private concession in the Selous National Park, which is more than twice as big as Kruger National Park. Up to eight people have sole use of a very luxurious, though simple, tented lodge.  The camp has no permanent structures and only four spacious sleeping tents set along the riverbank in a clearing under the trees. Each authentic and stylish tent possesses beautifully worked pieces of campaign furniture made from recycled hardwoods, brass, copper and weathered canvas, enhanced by carpets, cushions and colors brought from Zanzibar and elsewhere. Large en-suite bathrooms have bucket showers, flush toilets, washbasins and vanity stands. Hot water is available upon request 24/7. Each sleeping tent has large comfortable beds, luxurious linen, full-length mirrors and standing fans.  The camp is solar-powered.

For those intrepid travelers who wish to literally “sleep under the stars,” a fly camp can be set up with mosquito nets serving as your tent, and your bed a luxurious mattress underneath.

Crossing the Luwegu River

What They Are Doing

Lukula was a hunting concession until 2008, when it was converted by Great Plains into a non-consumptive, non-hunting reserve.  Great Plains pays the cost of the hunting quota for the area, even though not a single animal is shot. Lukula employs two groups of anti-poaching scouts drawn from the local community, who patrol the area on foot year round. Once the operation is profitable, the company plans to share ownership with the local community.