CONSERVATION & ECO-TOURISM
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Volcanoes study visit to Kahuzi-Biega, DRC |
BLCF supported dance group at Virunga Lodge |
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The Kyambura chimpanzee researchers –
Jimmy and Nicole |
Etienne and Praveen at the Great Apes Conference, Kinshasa |
PEOPLE
The ‘Volcanoes family’ – from the guides and waitresses to the lodge managers and tour team – are committed to ensuring that clients have a distinctive and memorable experience in this frontier area of Africa.
Many of our staff, drawn from different countries and ethnic groups, are from families which have survived conflict. All have benefited from Volcanoes’ extensive training program and today they manage our safaris and lodges. This approach to empowering local staff is unique among leading safari companies.
PRINCIPLES
Africa’s great apes are under serious threat from habitat destruction, poaching and disease. As the leading gorilla safari company, Volcanoes has demonstrated our commitment to working for their survival by being the only safari company to sign the Kinshasa Declaration on Saving the Great Apes. Volcanoes’ founders have developed a responsible and sensitive ecotourism vision with three central principles:
- we believe ecotourism is essential to the survival of the great apes but needs to be carefully controlled.
- local people need to earn a livelihood if they are to appreciate the importance of protecting both man’s nearest cousins and their habitats.
- tourism income should also help conservation of the apes and their habitats.
The private sector is the “missing link” in creating sustainable great ape ecotourism and must play an increasing part if the future of the great apes is to be safeguarded.
PARTNERSHIPS
Volcanoes believes that long-term partnerships between ecotourism companies, local communities, conservation bodies, governments and donors are essential for the survival of great apes.
In post-conflict Rwanda, Volcanoes has successfully completed a Public Private Partnership backed by the British government. The Volcanoes Business Linkages Challenge Fund project (BLCF) helped improve hotels, train local people in hospitality and guiding, increase income and improve local craftsmen’s skills and helped open up Rwanda to international tourism. The project brought an estimated US$1.5 million to the Rwandese economy. We are developing other such public-private partnership projects around great ape communities.
For more details on how some of the features of our eco-lodges work please click here |
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