5 independent reviews for Cape Town to Victoria Falls small group lodge tour

Dear Arvind, Thank you very much for joining us on the Cape Town to Victoria Falls Grand Explorer safari. Our commitment to sustainable and responsible African safari tourism is one of our priorities and is demonstrated in our low impact travel style where all we take is photographs and all we leave are our footprints. Being an African company, 100% of the tour price is brought into Southern Africa. Although it may appear that the benefit is minimal, there is much that goes on behind the scenes that your safari contributed towards. By booking with us through Responsible Travel, you contributed in the following ways: The entrance fees for all the national parks visited go back to the running of these beautiful parks and to conservation, while all the food purchased on tour, was done so locally so as to benefit the local communities. During our stay in Damaraland a local guide took you to visit a San Bushman Rock Art site. A conservation partnership was signed in 2003 and this community benefit through employment and a percentage of the income of the lodge. Our walks to view the busman rock art are led by a local community guide. The local community directly benefits from your visit through the employment of the local guide and the entrance fees to this site. Conservation is not possible without the involvement of local communities and this arrangement ensures the preservation of these amazing rock art sites. When the tour travelled through Botswana, we used local 'poler guides' to take us into the Okavango Delta. The polers have an intimate knowledge of the Okavango Delta, and their employment as guides ensure that the local community benefit from tourism and ensures that these areas are conserved for future generations. The MOKORO is the traditional means of transport for the people of the Okavango Delta in Botswana. But behind this serene experience there lies a disturbing environmental impact. With the increase in tourism to Botswana over the last 20 years the number of mekoro polers earning a living from tourism has increased. This has been beneficial to the communities living within the Okavango Delta and by 2009 there are estimated to be over 2000 mokoros in the Okavango region. Each mokoro is cut from a single mature Kigelia Africana tree (Sausage Tree). ?The root of the problem is that a wooden mekoro lasts perhaps only 5 years before it rots and falls apart. Therefore to build new mekoro, roughly 400 trees must be felled each year and there just aren’t enough trees to sustain this. The local communities of the Okavango are aware of the problem – largely because they now struggle to find trees big enough for mekoro. The community have agreed to stop harvesting trees in the Ditsipi village area and are therefore buying wooden mekoro from other parts of the delta. In the Okavango the number of Sausage Trees cut down each year to build new wooden mekoros is not sustainable. The solution to this environmental issue is to use fiberglass mekoro. We have consulted with the community and they have agreed that should a poler buy a fiberglass mokoro, then the poler will pay 50% of the cost and ourselves the other 50%. Through our Botswana operating company we have set up a fund to assist polers to buy fiberglass mekoros and help protect their natural environment. I do hope that my explanation of how your tour actually contributed, was helpful. We thank you for joining us on safari and Responsible Travel and ourselves hope to welcome you back to Africa again sometime soon. Warm regards Debz Oscroft