TREK EAST AFRICA

Brighter 2010 for Kenyan Tourism

2010-09-22T16:36:00.000+03:00

The tourism industry stakeholders are optimistic that 2010 may be the best year for the business and Kenyan airlines are gearing up for the challenge.

In 2007, Kenya recorded some 1.8 million visitors bringing in nearly $1 billion from the tourism industry, but political events in the country which were aggravated by the emerging global financial and economic crisis, led to a slump in tourist arrivals in 2008.

In 2009, with support from Kenya Airways, the Kenya Tourist Board made efforts to rejuvenate the industry by involving 250 travel agents, tour operators, and media representatives to improve the image of the country as a tourist destination.

The results paid off and the industry went close to hitting the 2007 figures. The more conservative sections of the industry still believe that by 2012 the two million visitor threshold will be crossed, while the more optimistic operators hope that this can be achieved in 2011.

With the world economy coming out of recession now almost everywhere, it is thought that realistic to see a new arrival record established in 2010, although the revenue growth may lag behind for a while as the market still depends on a range of special offers to match the marketing and sales efforts of other long-haul destinations.

This in particular applies for beach holidays, while the safari sector - offering a generally unique product with little competition beyond the Eastern African region - might see a return to the per capita revenues from before the crisis.

A joint marketing effort is underway through the East African Community, aimed to promote the five East African countries as one destination with many attractions, may also help the effort, but pending side issues like a common tourist visa permitting the entry to all of the EAC member states must first be resolved before this initiative can truly bear fruit.

Single EAC Currency still has a long way

2010-09-22T16:17:00.000+03:00

The East African countries are now taking steps towards integrating the financial sector but have still got reforms to make.

Once single integration is completed, EAC will be the second largest single market in Africa boasting of over 120 million consumers. This market will also require having the EAC interbank and credit markets, the money markets, the equity market, the foreign exchange market, the bond market and the derivatives market.
This means that the East African Countries would have their domestic financial markets but then also have the international financial markets.

"The market in East Africa is one that financial markets will thrive on in order to have a free flowing integrated financial sector," says Paddy Turyamwijuka, the Deputy Director Financial Markets at Bank of Uganda.

He was addressing accountants at the 15th Institute of certified Public Accountants (ICPAU) annual seminar in Entebbe, near Kampala. Taryamwijuka also adds that the EAC has supportive protocols that work and are aimed towards the establishment of financial markets integration.

The Monetary Union Protocol which would lead to one EAC currency and the establishment of East African Central Bank (EACB) is expected to promote the final integration of East Africa.

A single currency would ease travel of citizens and goods, eliminating exchange rate problems, providing price transparency, creating a single financial market, price stability and low interest rates, and providing a currency used internationally and protected against shocks by the large amount of internal trade within the east Africa.

Currently the Monetary Affairs Committee (MAC) of EAC has been established and is mandated to provide the oversight and execute the matters related to financial markets. However for this to yield results the various EAC countries must be able to harmonise their financial sectors.

"Reforms will be required of them in the financial markets sector so that atleast they are at the same level or playing field," Turyamwijuka adds.

"Rwanda has made most reforms more than any other already existing member state of the EAC and the World Bank has ranked the country high in the financial markets reforms," he adds.

Rwanda however is also yet to have a fully operation Securities Exchange as companies still trade over the counter.

Kenya which is the home of the largest economy in the EAC and the largest and most active stock exchange, is ahead in terms of financial markets reform compared to the rest of the countries in the region. It also has a vibrant financial sector.

"Tanzania is not a fully liberalised economy and its financial sector in particular still has some impediments to foreign investors and other monetary activities," he adds.

EA passport to enable travel around the globe

2010-04-25T18:37:00.002+03:00

The East African passport is to be upgraded to international standards and will allow citizens to travel around the world.

The new EAC passport complies with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) document 9303 standards. Personal details of the applicant will now be legible through a computer from the “machine readable zone.”

The holder’s fingerprints, signature and photograph will be acquired digitally and stored in a database. The old model of the passport introduced nearly a decade ago by Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya has the holder’s data type written or hand written on it. It was meant to ease border crossing.

But the document has not been as popular as the traditional passports issued by the Immigration departments in the respective states. It ended up being used mainly by ordinary people such as traders and students travelling across the region, with government officials and business people shunning it.

Juma Mwapachu, the East African Community secretary general said though the traditional passports had been accepted internally, they were not used internationally.

“This is why we want to upgrade the EA passports so it can allow electronic screening,” Mr Mwapachu said.

When they were first issued, the EA passports were valid only in EAC member states but were to be upgraded into international passports starting this year. They would eventually replace the national passports.

However, this proposal is unlikely to materialise in the near future as a lot of groundwork has to be done, including phasing out the national passports of individual states and printing new passports with security marks.

Unlike the EA passports which one has to pay $10 to acquire and is valid five years, national passports of the three partner states are valid for 10 years.

Meanwhile, the issuance of the old passport has been suspended indefinitely to allow for the upgrading work to be completed.

10 year Rwanda Tourism Plan Approved

2010-04-18T15:03:00.000+03:00

The Sustainable Tourism Development Master Plan for Rwanda approved by a cabinet meeting recently, assesses the current tourism industry and proposes the industry's strategic growth direction in the next decade.

The 182-page document developed in collaboration with the government of Rwanda, the private sector and the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) identifies Kigali, the capital of Rwanda as the main tourism hub and other six Destination Management Areas (DMAs) across the country.

The DMAs include Volcanoes Area (north), Akagera Area (east) Muhazi Area (east), Kibuye Area (west), Nyungwe Area (west) and Gisenyi in the western part of Rwanda.

"DMAs are designed to revitalise economies of tourism areas, contribute to the protection and development of conservation and heritage sites where market development pressures are being felt, and where a balance between sustaining the local economy and protecting the environment needs to be reached,"

The master plan identifies hurdles to the development of the Rwandan tourism industry and proposes solutions to them. Some of the hurdles include lack of facilities and services, product gaps, insufficient marketing, in adequate marketing of the sector and skills deficiencies.

The plan notes some hurdles like limited flights to Rwanda, Rwanda's invisibility in the international market place, and limited product offer are fundamental.

"Rwanda offers the international tourism market a very limited product offer in terms of variety, quantity and quality. Rwanda's current product offer is effectively limited to the Gorilla," reads the plan.

"Compounding this, the country's nature resources are in a 'raw state' - lacking supporting infrastructure for the most part, inadequately packaged, and where available very basic."

It proposes that Community Based Tourism, Conferences and Meetings and cultural tourism are among Rwanda's potential attractions that need attention.

The plan earmarks products like birding, water tourism and the national parks as outstanding for the country's tourism industry. The plan notes that Rwanda lacks tourist legislation to regulate the industry and protect the tourists. It also says that implementation of the planning legislation is weak and this can undermine investment and the future of the country's cultural heritage.

Karibu: East Africa’s largest tourism fair takes place in Arusha, Tanzania

2010-04-14T18:23:00.003+03:00

Now in its 11th year, Tanzania’s Karibu Travel and Tourism Fair is the largest and most ambitious travel industry event in East Africa.

As such, it has become “the place to meet,” for the region’s travel industry partners from around the world. The 2010 Karibu Fair, which will take place June 4-6, promises to be the largest ever. The Karibu Fair takes place just outside of Arusha, Tanzania’s safari capital. The annual event is organized by the Tanzania Association of Tour Operators (TATO), Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB) and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism (MNRT).

According to Amant Macha, TTB’s Acting Managing Director, “Tanzania is very proud that the Karibu Fair, that started as a modest initiative, has evolved into a major travel industry showcase for all the East African destinations."

Part of the uniqueness and excitement of The Karibu Travel and Tourism Fair is that it is an outdoor event that offers a real safari experience. Over 250 exhibitors and thousands of regional and international visitors are expected to attend the 2010 Fair, which is open to the trade on June 4th and the public on June 5th and 6th. Travel industry suppliers, large and small, including Tour Operators, tourist boards, hoteliers, and support service representatives and equipment manufacturers are typical participants. International travel trade journalists regularly cover the event along with local media, and "familiarization trips" are being offered to encourage international travel agents to attend.

James Haigh, Sales and Marketing Manager, Singita Grumeti Reserves in Tanzania, in speaking about the Karibu Fair commented ”I go to the Karibu Fair because I have found that it is the one event where one can meet all the major players, buyers and suppliers, in the East African tourism industry."

Macha added “Since America continues to be Tanzania’s number one source market for tourists, we are making a special effort to attract more travel agents from the US market. There are currently over 1400 qualified Tanzania Travel Agent Specialists in the US, and we hope to encourage them to participate by offering special pre and post safaris.”

Local participation good for Tourism

2010-03-23T13:29:00.005+03:00

By Geoffrey Baluku

Kampala, Uganda

Visitors are drawn to Uganda by the natural beauty, wildlife, warm hospitality offered by the citizens of this East African country and the rich culture that continues to make Uganda a popular tourist destination. With the knowledge that tourism has the potential to contribute significantly on an ongoing basis to the economy of Uganda, the powers that be need to place emphasis not only to the development of the country’s infrastructure and tourism facilities but also to improve the lives of local people, protect their environment and offer a better future.

Long and short term development plans should be developed so that tourism and its benefits are spread within local areas.

For tourism to be developed in a sustainable manner, efforts should be made to ensure enjoyment for the tourist and minimum impact or disruption for the local communities and environment. Tourism investments are too often imposed from the outside, and the potential for sustainable forms of tourism is weakened. Unless local people begin feeling tourism in their pockets and on their tables, all efforts may be put to waste.
To ensure community involvement and to safeguard local cultures, sustainable tourism development should therefore involve all stakeholders in tourism development at all appropriate levels, facilitate the development of tourism services that are planned, managed and reviewed by the host community, ensure that tourism revenue stays in the host communities so as to enhance livelihoods and generate a profitable source of income.

There is need to also emphasize the use of work with new technology, natural resource management and marketing concepts. Ideally, participatory planning and implementation should be part of the processes. What has often disturbed me is to see that Uganda Wildlife Authority, custodians of all National Parks in Uganda, are the very people that have given this country a raw deal. Cases in point range from the Gorilla Permit monopoly deal, the hunting contract given to a private investor last year among others.

A time has come when these private investors should consider building symbiotic relationships with the locals staying close to the protected areas if they expect guests to be safe. The biggest challenge is when locals finally realize (as they have already realized) that they got a raw deal from particular investments. It is happening in Bwindi; where a private investor was supposed to be giving back some financial contribution to the locals under a lease arrangement.

However, it has come to my knowledge that members from the very community are now complaining that the investor keeps on claiming that they have more guests on complementary arrangement than the paying guest meaning that the locals have not benefited from the deal.

A few months back I was one of those who questioned the rationale of Uganda Wildlife Authority awarding a Gorilla Monopoly deal to a private investor by using the community as a conduit. For this the investor and a few un patriotic individuals tried to intimidate and even decided to sue me. I stood firm in my thinking and up to today nothing has moved an inch and history is beginning to judge me right. This goes on to show tendencies of open robbery.

At one time a local was asked why he had stolen some items from a tourist, and he replied: They say we should benefit from tourism so am just benefiting. If am also to remind you of a Chinese proverb that goes; you do not teach people to eat, you just give them food, similarly the locals of Bwindi and other areas in Uganda should not just be taught how to smile at tourists, but should be given a reason to do so!

Involving local people is surely one of the missing ingredients undermining the success of Uganda’s tourism industry. Non Governmental Organizations and some donor agencies have tried to work with local people identifying their needs and supplying them with what they want. But without private sector input, the sustainability of these initiatives is questionable.

Two key forces are driving the development of tourism i.e the new tourists and the new private sector initiatives.

The new tourists are waking up to calls of the media as well as to the hard reality that it’s not business as usual. There is growing demand for more contact with locals and a safer and cleaner environment. We have to deviate from the known practice of a few reaping the benefits because tourism is for all and people are for tourism.

The Ministry of Tourism through its line department of UWA should not just give people fish but should teach them how to fish.UWA needs to do is to train the locals to effectively manage the resources in their areas.

Joint Tourism Bill passed by East African Parliament

2010-02-13T09:24:00.006+03:00

By Geoffrey Baluku

The East African Legislative Assembly has passed the Tourism and Wildlife Management Bill paving way for an establishment of a Joint Tourism Board for the community.

This private member’s bill presented by MP Safina Kwekwe (Kenya) during the third meeting of the third session of the second East African Legislative is also aimed at creating an East African Tourism and Wildlife Commission that would coordinate the management of Tourism and Wildlife amongst the partner states.

In an interview with Trek East Africa, Kwekwe said, “The bill is about enabling an environment where marketing and promotion of tourism activities can be done jointly by all partner states. It also aims at setting standards for the tourism industry in the region by enhancing capacity building,” she added.

The Commission will promote cultural tourism, wildlife management, guarantee Intellectual property rights protection and coordinate the marketing and promotion of tourism in East Africa as a single tourism destination.

Wild animals wander across the East African borders, there for it is imperative that the community manages wildlife together.

Kate Kamba (Tanzania) said the region was endowed with enormous natural resources, whose management is burdened by bureaucracy among the member countries.

Hon. George Francis Nangale (Tanzania) on his part said that the passing of the bill is yet another milestone to EALA in its efforts to coordinate East African Partner States towards the management of the tourism industry in the region.

Kwekwe, the legislator from Kenya added, that "For East Africa to be a single tourism destination there will be need for harmonizing tourism policies and having the same incentives for tourists across the region".

She says the Bill will bring an end to contradictions in Tourism policies within member states.

Are too many tourists killing Africa's wildlife?

2010-02-13T08:52:00.002+03:00

I have barely been in Zarafa, Botswana’s newest exclusive safari camp, five minutes when I have my first encounter with a wild animal. I am halfway along the pathway that leads to my tented room when a bull elephant emerges out of the bush and stands, stock still, just 20 yards up the path, directly in front of me. I hold my ground, as the guides instruct you to do, but I can hear my heart beating, partly out of excitement and partly out of fear. For a moment there is complete stillness as two tons of bull elephant stares down on 190 pounds of puny homo sapiens.

Then I hear footsteps and, looking over my shoulder, see the lean figure of Dereck Joubert striding towards me. As he passes me he raises his hands and claps twice. The big bull shakes his head, looks Joubert up and down, and turns off the path towards the fever berry trees. “Isn’t that fantastic?” Joubert says with a broad grin. “These elephants are so relaxed. They’re already getting used to this camp and we’ve only been operating here for six months.” That isn’t quite what is going through my mind.

Joubert is one person you would expect to know the difference between a relaxed elephant and one that in an instant would drop its head, flatten its ears and charge you with deadly effect. He has, after all, with his wife Beverly, spent the past quarter of a century living out here cheek-by-jowl with wild animals. In that time, spent mostly in tents, they have come to know the wilderness and its inhabitants in the way we city dwellers have come to know the neighbourhood shops, art galleries, bars and restaurants… the contents of our urban lives.

Once Joubert has dispatched the bull elephant he returns to the main camp and I walk on to my room. Then I sit for half an hour on my veranda looking out onto the lagoon that lies in front of the camp. That brief exchange between man and animal, the smell of the bushveld, the serene quiet of the wilderness and the changing light as the sun begins to set behind the ilala palms beyond the lagoon – all of this infuses me with the spiritual nourishment that seems absent from so much of our scurrying daily lives in the so-called civilised world’s great urban agglomerations.

Out here I can breathe again, I can feel connected to the planet whose sides I barely touch in my city life. Out here my olfactory senses come alive and my skin tingles as the evening breezes whip up.

Joubert’s call from the main tent interrupts my reverie. We are to drive off across the lagoon to look for a lion pride that has recently moved into the area. The Jouberts are now the most famous wildlife film-makers on the continent: five-time Emmy winners who last year released their first major film. In 25 years of bush living they have all but become integral parts of the ecosystem, as much components of the environment as the leopard, lion and elephant. Now this camp, Zarafa, and Great Plains, the wildlife tourism company they have launched with Colin Bell, a conservationist, and two other partners, promise a revolutionary step into the future for African wildlife conservation.

The company’s mission is “conserving and expanding natural habitats”, according to Bell. The strategy: high-tariff, low-volume tourism. Instead of paying fees based on the number of tourists who come in, camp owners guarantee payment every month to the local people, regardless of occupancy. In exchange, the tribal landowners agree to create and maintain a viable and sustainable conservancy that ensures that wildlife prospers. Great Plains claims to make these communities direct financial beneficiaries (and even shareholders), earning income streams from tourism, encouraging the tribes people to become custodians of the African wilderness.

If a model based on working with the community sounds blindingly obvious, one should be aware that, in most of Africa’s diminishing wilderness areas, safari tourism has had such minimal financial impact that local tribes people see the animals as competitors for the land.
Zarafa is the penultimate stop on a long trek that began in Kenya and has taken me through the Maasai Mara, KwaZulu Natal in South Africa, the fabled Kruger National Park and Botswana. Ahead lie a couple of days at South Africa’s Londolozi, the private luxury camp on the border of Kruger.

Everyone I have met on my trek says the same thing: the wilderness is at a tipping point. Hell, the whole of Africa is at a tipping point, faced as it is with unsustainably massive population growth, attendant poverty, corrupt government and the growth of misguided mass-tourism safari outfits. It has been like this for decades, but the decline of animal populations seems to have accelerated with the turn of the century, and the veld, that last refuge for the planet’s most varied mammal and bird population, is facing a crucial decade.

The problems have become especially apparent in Kenya’s Maasai Mara reserve, one of the world’s most famous safari destinations, which has for decades been cursed with low-revenue, high-volume tourism. There has been little benefit for the fast-growing local communities and a shocking impact on the animals.

In the early Eighties there were maybe half a dozen lodges in the Mara with fewer than 300 beds; today there are more than 25 permanent lodges and well over 3,000 beds. East African conservationists say that soaring visitor numbers have severely damaged roads and grasslands.

Equally threatening to wildlife have been the growth and changing lifestyles of the rural population. The once nomadic Maasai have left their mud-and-wattle homesteads and gravitated to more permanent settlements along the borders of the Mara reserve. Thus the wild animals that have moved in and out of the reserve are now competing for habitat with Maasai livestock that no longer move over the vast plains, and large-scale crop cultivation that comes with a more settled lifestyle.

According to a recent report by the International Livestock Research Institute, the reserve’s ungulate population declined sharply from 1989 to 2003 as a result of poaching and human encroachment. Giraffe numbers are down 95 per cent, warthogs 80 per cent, hartebeest 76 per cent and impala 67 per cent. The carnivores that depend on these wild animals are, according to the institute’s Joesph Ogutu, the next casualties. “The number of lions are going down, the cheetah numbers are declining, “and the wild dogs in the Mara system have become extinct,” he says.

The Mara is famously the setting for the annual wildebeest migration, also known as the greatest wildlife show on earth. In previous decades more than 1.2 million wildebeest and an attendant caravan of predators – mainly large lion and hyena groups – would move from Tanzania’s Serengeti up onto the Mara plains. A recent count suggested that migratory numbers have now dropped to 300,000. According to Brian Heath, chairman of the Mara Conservancy Trust, “the migrations into the Mara will not be sustained if the numbers keep falling as they have in recent years.”

This rush towards extinction in one of the world’s most famous wildlife habitats supports the views of Bell and the Jouberts that nothing short of a conservation revolution will save Africa’s wild places.

Great Plains’s move into the Maasai Mara is a great test of the Bell and Joubert model. In Botswana, they are operating in an environment of relative stability with government support that is free of corruption; by comparison Kenya is the Wild West. Conservationists argue that cynical tour operators and lodge owners, and corrupt county councils, have over the years siphoned off most of the profits from foreign tourism, leaving almost nothing to trickle down to local tribespeople. Add to this a volatility surrounding foreign tourist arrivals, which fell spectacularly after the 2008 post-election riots and are now subject to the global downturn in foreign travel following the credit crunch, and it’s easy to see how the ordinary Maasai need some convincing that their financial security is best served by ecotourists photographing animals.

Thanks to guaranteed community payments by Mara Plains, Great Plains’ six-room, 12-bed camp on the Olare Orok Conservancy (OOC) on the Maasai Mara’s northern border, the Maasai have moved their homesteads, cattle and goats out of the 30,000-acre area. Lions and other predators are starting to come back. Wild Africa is reclaiming itself.

The OOC deal was brokered by Jake Grieves-Cook and Ron Beaton, two respected Kenya hands who have long been involved in wildlife tourism, and among the four partners are Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin group and the Great Plains group, which have collectively put up $250,000 (£160,000) for the right to build and operate tented camps. What is unique for Kenya about the OOC is that it has strict limits on visitor numbers: there is one tourist tent for every 700 acres of conservancy land. “This land is critical to the survival of most resident and migratory wildlife species such as elephant and wildebeest,” says Dickson Ole Kaelo, a well-known Maasai ecologist, who is urging the government to support the expansion of conservation and tourism on Maasai community lands along the lines of the OOC. “These conservancies have demonstrated pragmatic approaches to sustaining the Mara’s wildlife, giving a better tourist experience and providing returns to the land owners for investing in conservation.”

Botswana is Africa’s conservation poster boy, in large part because of its stable government. In contrast, many wildlife rivals – Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe – have been riven with corruption that starts in the higher reaches of public office and finds its way to the gates of the national parks. One conservationist in east Africa told of an official arriving at the conservancy he manages with a black briefcase which, when opened, revealed $200,000 in crisp notes.
“This was what he was offering me to allow some Middle Eastern clients to come big game hunting in this proscribed park,” he told me. “I told him to get off the conservancy immediately.”

Without strong, stable government, Africa’s wildlife is particularly vulnerable, as is painfully evident in Robert Mugabe’s all but collapsed Zimbabwe. With almost no policing of the country’s proscribed wildlife areas, famous national parks such as Hwange have become open house for illegal hunting parties. Conservationists say that we will only know the true cost of almost a decade of anarchy when the Mugabe era is over and a full audit is taken of once-abundant parks.

Botswana also stands out from its neighbours for its wise policies when it comes to tourism. In the Eighties the government took the advice of a group of conservationists and decided to develop the high-revenue, low-volume tourist model, with communities being direct beneficiaries. The policy has paid off handsomely, as Botswana has not been as susceptible to the ebbs and flows of western tourists as, say, Kenya, which has traditionally depended on more mass-market tourism. Kenya’s volatile mixture of political instability and dependence on western tourists hit home in 2008, when post-election riots stopped international tourism in its tracks during its peak season and left most of the Mara’s lodges empty for the first half of the year.

The Botswana government also wrings a bigger commitment out of the companies that run the lodges and safaris in its wildlife parks. Companies such as Great Plains, Wilderness Safaris and Abercrombie & Kent are obliged to pay sizeable lease fees – sometimes up to $250,000 per concession per annum – to the local communities, plus 4.5 per cent of turnover during the year. According to safari insiders, that 4.5 per cent works out at about 25 per cent of the net profits of a well-run safari operation. On top of that, leases are contracted for 15 years, encouraging camp operators to invest in their surroundings. By contrast, in east Africa most operators pay only a bed-night lease fee, which means that the community benefits only if someone sleeps in the bed .
In a bad year, such as 2008, when tourists stop coming, revenue dries up, and local communities – left questioning the benefits of wildlife tourism – are thus inclined to revert to other land uses, such as domestic livestock and subsistence agriculture.

The Toyota Landcruiser is bouncing across the rutted track when Joubert sees movement in the jackalberry trees to the left of the vehicle. It is a female leopard heading west into the dusk light.

Reluctantly, Joubert tells our driver, Dukes, to keep going or we will miss seeing the lion pride hunting buffalo. This part of Botswana was until recently a hunting area, and the Jouberts’ conservation philosophy is not surprisingly driven by a fierce anti-hunting position. Dereck points out that in the time it took him and his wife to make their documentary film Eye of the Leopard, about a leopardess called Lagadema, “10,000 leopards like her were legally hunted and killed, all with permits approved by CITES, [the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species].”

Although sport hunting was banned in Kenya in 1978, it remains legal and a source of considerable revenue in Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa and some parts of Botswana. Thanks to the Jouberts, Bell and a small group of like-minded conservationists, Botswana is leading the drive to ban hunting completely in prime areas. There are now seven major wilderness areas in the country, totalling two million acres, that have been converted from hunting to photographic safaris. Botswana’s president, Ian Khama, a close friend of the Jouberts, has personally endorsed the initiative.

Bell and the Jouberts are taking their anti-hunting message into the heartland of big game safaris: Tanzania. Trophy fees there have remained the same since the mid-Eighties, making Tanzania the international hunter’s bargain basement. Though there are no statistics available on the number of animals shot annually, it is estimated that Tanzania generates $13 million from what is coyly termed “wildlife utilisation”, which includes hunting and live animal capture. In South Africa, which does keep statistics, more than 54,000 animals of all species were hunted in 2006, earning the country more than $250 million in trophy fees. Big business, indeed.

“We are buying the hunting licences in the Selous Game Reserve and tearing them up,” says Joubert with glee. “Our total bill will be close to $90,000 this year. We are saying that we are going to own these animals for the year.”

Having wrenched Dereck away from the lone leopard, we head out into the evening looking for the lions. It isn’t long before we find them, a pride of nine animals doing little more than lolling around in the turpentine grass, occasionally standing alert as a nearby herd of buffalo shows signs of movement.

As dusk envelops us and the extraordinary night sky fills with stars, we find ourselves contemplating the impact homo sapiens is having on this magnificent wilderness. Dereck stares intently at the pride and says “around the time the occupants of this vehicle were born just over half a century back, there were more than 450,000 lions roaming across Africa.” His voice echoes in the stillness: “Today, there are fewer than 20,000 left on the whole continent.”

Soon, grim statistics and analysis are punctuating the night air. We all agree we are overpopulating at such a pace and to such dramatic effect that we are minutes from midnight ecologically, with rural Africa experiencing one of the highest population growth rates on earth. For most of human history, the fields grew plants, the plants made cellulose, we ate the plants, we ate the animals and we were living off current sunlight.

From the earliest evidence of human civilisation, around 150,000 years ago, until the industrial age in the 19th century, that was how we lived and our population did not pass a billion people. Our second billion took just 130 years to appear, the third only 30 years, taking us to 1960; since 1963, our population has doubled to more than six billion. We are living on environmental credit.

The pressure in Africa is most serious. The population has grown from 100 million at the beginning of the 20th century to 700 million at the end. By midway through this century it will have ballooned to two billion and, although the massive concentrations are in the cities, the wilderness areas are increasingly under pressure from burgeoning rural populations and their domestic animals. It’s most notable in the Maasai Mara, increasingly one of the most competed-for tracts of wilderness on the continent – both from the point of view of local residents and foreign tourists.

My last stop on this extended safari is Londolozi, a private reserve with four luxurious camps. I feel I need to catch up with Dave Varty, the man who, by creating in the early Seventies one of the first high-revenue, low-impact safari camps on the edge of South Africa’s giant Kruger National Park, set the tone for luxury light safaris. Where once big names such as Teddy Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway and John Huston used to go on safari with hunting rifles and retinues of bearers, their present equivalents pitch up with a few overnight bags on a private jet and hope that the spa and masseurs are in order and that the wines have been kept at the correct temperature.

Like the most progressive East Africans, Varty thinks the solution lies in returning this entire area of South Africa to wildlife, moving the rural population that is pressing up against Kruger’s western boundary away from the area, and creating an enormous wildlife corridor that reinstates the elephant migratory paths that existed here until the arrival of white colonials.

There are five dirt-poor villages with some 40,000 people living in this hardscrabble landscape, and to say that their existence is subsistence almost understates the case. The men are away in the cities earning money; there is nothing here for the women and children. In the same way that the Maasai have been given incentives to move out of the OOC, so Varty believes that wildlife tourism can help the translocation of these communities into more viable rural towns.

Over the next two days, we drive around Londolozi tracking leopards, looking for lions and watching a large herd of elephant drinking and grazing along the banks of the Sand River. This is part of the 155,000-acre Sabi Sands reserve, and Londolozi and its similarly luxurious neighbours, Mala Mala, Singita and Richard Branson’s Ulusaba, promise their wealthy American and European clientele accessible wildlife from the comfort of a vehicle with perfectly mixed sundowners at some beautiful spot at the end of the drive.

Over sundowners on my last night, Varty goes intergalactic, waving his arms around and raving about corridors and optimum land usage and why “we Africans have to tell people like Sir Richard Branson and Bono what it is exactly we need here. We don’t want a school to be built here – we want you to pay for 300 miles of fence and you can tell the world that Virgin built the Sir Richard Branson Fence.” Then he’s off again, this time addressing South Africa’s president, Jacob Zuma.

“I’m not going to build a school here, Mr Zuma,” he declares to an audience of elephants washing themselves and drinking down at the water’s edge. “No, let’s build one at Thulamahashe or at Bushbuck Ridge [rural towns some way off]. Let’s put up proper housing, proper towns. There is nothing for people in these semi-arid, low-rainfall areas. This is for wild animals. Don’t put any more bricks and mortar on this thing.” Then he falls silent. There is nothing nuanced about what Varty is saying.

And there you have it, the rolling thunder of so many voices, desperate to be heard, messianic in their message. Cut corruption. Stop hunting. Create corridors. Move people. Pay people. Make tourism pay.

The sun has set, the elephants are barely visible in the soft moonlight. The stars stud the inky sky. It has all been said. Is anybody listening?

By Graham Boynton
Telegraph

Gorilla Census in Uganda for March

2010-02-12T08:25:00.003+03:00

THE Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) is to carry out a gorilla census in Mgahinga National Park on March 1. The census shall be done with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo that share the Virunga ranges where the gorillas are found.

Speaking to journalists on Tuesday, the conservation area manager for Bwindi and Mgahinga, Charles Tumwesigye, said the census shall be done with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo that share the Virunga ranges where the gorillas are found.

According to the UWA executive director, Moses Mapesa, gorilla tourism contributes the highest foreign exchange to the economy.

The number of tourists visiting Bwindi Impenetrable National Park which nests some of the gorillas living in Uganda is believed to be growing steadily.

East Africa to invest in museums

2010-02-05T16:16:00.005+03:00

By Paul Tentena

EAST African governments have resolved to invest in museums so as to preserve historical values of East Africa which will boost the tourism industry.

The governments also agreed that member countries establish conference and convention centres in business cities like Kigali, Arusha, Jinja, Mombasa, Bujumbura and Dar-es-Salaam.

This was at the 3rd East African investment conference at the Imperial Royale Hotel in Kampala recently. The conference was held under the theme “Invest in East Africa, where challenges are opportunities.”

Eriya Kategaya, the second deputy prime minister and minister for East African affairs, said countries should enact laws that promote investments, development of efficient infrastructures and the elimination of corruption and red tape.

The conference resolved to set up colleges for hotel and tourism management and to encourage the development of three to five star hotels to cater to business persons and tourists.

Bikingi Gorilla Group on Track

2010-01-27T12:06:00.005+03:00

By Geoffrey Baluku

The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) has in the past few months been habituating another group of Mountain Gorillas (Bikingi) for tourism. This arose from an earlier public outcry where industry stake holders questioned the rationale of UWA awarding monopoly rights of Nkuringo gorillas to a private investor under the disguise of doing it for the local community.

Bikingi group which is in the southern sector of Bwindi Forest National Park will be the 8th group to be habituated. Other groups include Nshongi that was officially opened for Tourism in September 2009, Bitukura Group in Ruhija, Nkuringo, Mubare, Habinyanja, Rushegura and Kyaguriro that is currently being used for research. The eight habituated gorilla groups constitute about 25% of the total gorilla population in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.

Gorilla tracking contributes over 60 % of tourism revenue to the coffers of the Ugandan government.

According to researchers, "overall, the gorilla population has been increasing at an approximate annual growth rate of 1%, which is indicative of a healthy population".

The director of conservation, Sam Mwandha, said, “It is too early to say when they will be able to accept human presence for the Bikingi group. We will probably be able to establish this in the next few months.”

The total Mountain Gorilla population in the whole world is estimated to be about 760 with about 340 in the jungles of Bwindi Forest as the rest straddle through Mgahinga, Rwanda and DR Congo.

RwandAir to fly Johannesburg direct

2010-01-26T20:53:00.005+03:00

Hardly two months after taking delivery of its new aircraft, RwandAir has released a new schedule effective February 2010 announcing direct flights into Johannesburg every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. The four weekly flights which beginning February 3, 2010 will maintain the daylight operation with departures from Kigali set at 1430HRS (Local Kigali Time).

Kigali bound flights will depart from Johannesburg at 1900HRS (Johannesburg Time). Prior to the temporary suspension last year, RwandAir Kigali-Johannesburg direct flights had gained popularity as being the most affordable and direct way of accessing east and central Africa from Johannesburg especially for travelers from the Americas, Australia and South East Asia.

The national carrier has also announced the launch of flights to the Tanzanian port city of Dar es Salaam via Bujumbura beginning February 2, 2010. The early morning flights will depart from Kigali International Airport at 0700HRS (Local Kigali Time) every Tuesday, Friday and Sunday while the direct to Kigali return flights will depart from Julius Nyerere International Airport Dar es Salaam at 1100HRS (Dar es Salaam Time).

While announcing these additions to the schedule, the Chief Operating Officer Capt. Jack Ekl said that the airline is keen on deploying more capacity and increasing its frequencies to these destinations with the expected acquisition of Boeing 767 and 737-800 in March 2010. “We will soon be communicating our 2010 World Cup offers with the resumption of the Jo’Burg Direct” he added. RwandAir recently announced its plans to operate scheduled flights to Goma and Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo - DRC in the first quarter of 2010.

Tanzania tourist arrivals reduce

2010-01-17T17:28:00.003+03:00

By TEA Correpondent

Tanzania is likely to miss out on millions of dollars usually expected from the tourism industry following the decline of international tourists' arrivals which is due to the global financial crisis. According to the UN World Tourism Organization, Tanzania suffered a 10 percent decline in foreign tourist arrivals in its wildlife-rich national parks in the first ten months of 2009.

The WTO's 2009 comprehensive report shows that the country had received about 576,643 travelers, down from 641,951 international tourists in 2008. The UN body goes on to note that the negative trends in international tourism surfaced in the second half of 2008 and intensified in 2009 due to the global economic downturn.

As a result, Tanzania, East Africa's second largest economy after Kenya, is currently struggling to promote domestic tourism in a bid to fill the gap in foreign tourism. Mr. Ibrahim Mussa, Assistant Director Research, Training and Statistics in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism observed that government had opted to concentrate on domestic tourism due to its potential.

"We have decided to increase efforts to woo domestic tourists as a counter to the effects of the global financial crisis because we found that it is paying off," said Mr. Mussa. He added that findings revealed that an endeavor to pursue local tourists is paying off with a 19.3% increase in activity.

Mr. Donatius Kamamba, Director of Antiquities in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, said that a preliminary analysis conducted by his Ministry, shows that the number of visitors coming to the country for leisure had dropped due to the consequences of the financial crisis.

More bidders required for Air Tanzania

2010-01-11T19:54:00.005+03:00

Even as the government enters the final stages of two-year negotiations with China Sonangol International Holdings to buy a controlling stake in Air Tanzania Corporation Ltd, it has now decided to invite more international firms to vie for a stake in the ailing airline.

The state-owned carrier last month cut 155 jobs amid talks of a partnership with China Sonangol. Only 182 employees remained. It cited overstaffing and accumulated staff wages as the reasons for the layoffs..

Ministry of Infrastructure Development Permanent Secretary Omar Chambo said talks between the government and officials from China Sonangol are at an “advanced stage,” without elaborating further.

Mr Chambo said the negotiations with the Chinese firm do not debar the government from looking for other investors, and that already several other companies have shown interest in the carrier. However, he declined to name the firms and their number, saying this could jeopardise the discussions.

According to Mr Chambo the government wants to see Air Tanzania revived and brought back to full strength to take advantage of growing markets like the Democratic Republic of Congo, China, Zambia and Malawi.

But critics say the government has not kept its word on giving Air Tanzania full support since the firm parted ways with South African Airways in 2006.

Air Tanzania Corporation Ltd, formerly known as Air Tanzania Corporation, was privatised on December 2, 2002 in a deal in which SAA acquired 49 per cent shares in the firm $20 million, which largely went into shareholding, with the rest going into capital and training accounts.

Last week, a US firm, Celtic Capital Corporation of Texas, said it was ready to take over the operations of Air Tanzania.

Five firms based in the US, the UK and the United Arab Emirates have also shown interest in running the cash-strapped airline.

In August 2008, the Tanzania government held secret talks with the Chinese Development Bank to sell the 49 per cent shares acquired back from SAA to a Hong Kong-based private firm with a view to reviving the ailing airline. In the deal, China Sonangol International Holdings was expected to fund the operations of the airline that is now struggling to regain its reputation and position in the regional and international market.

Sam Pal, chairman of Sonangol International said recently that China Development Bank would be funding the takeover of Air Tanzania, but bureaucracy within the government has delayed the takeover.

Terminal 3

Mr Pal said that Sonangol has already started construction of Terminal Three of JK Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam and is working on expansion of the airport.

Sonangol said that it has already bought an Embarer fleet for Air Tanzania. China Sonangol International Holdings Ltd, which was established in 2004, mainly engages in oil, gas and minerals investment and exploration, crude oil trading and large-scale national reconstruction projects.

Headquartered in Hong Kong, the company also has branch offices in mainland China, Africa and Latin America and operates the oil refinery in Angola as well as chartered airlines in Angola, the US and the UK.

The East African

Uganda's Tourism boosted by Global Hiking Challenge in the Wild

2010-01-11T19:33:00.004+03:00

By Benard Busulwa

Uganda’s tourism sector received a boost recently when the country hosted its inaugural Hike4Life challenge. The annual event, which is organised by Focus, an international humanitarian relief organisation, seeks to mobilise resources through sponsorship of hiking or cycling challenges.

Participants who are drawn from around the globe help to boost the host country’s tourism. Focus works with its agencies in Europe, North America and South Asia.

Uganda’s hiking challenge around Mt Elgon — which is famed for mountain climbing and hiking safaris — brought together 41 participants from Europe, USA and Canada. Although the country has attractive rivers, lakes, game parks and cultural sites, the tourism sector is under exploited due to poor marketing strategies. The choice of Mt Elgon for the Hike4Life event was inspired by its intact natural beauty and highly challenging terrain.

“We wanted an environment that could dare contestants both mentally and physically. In consultation with our local partners, Mt Elgon emerged as the best venue” said Irfan Haji, vice chairman of Focus agency in Europe.

Uganda views the Hike4Life event as an opportunity to showcase some of its less exploited tourist attraction sites. Mt Elgon for instance, is a popular tourist site but a poor road network and inapt bridges discourages tourists, particularly budget travellers, from visiting the region.

Consequently, tourist arrivals in the country are lower than those of neighbouring countries. For instance, Uganda recorded an estimated 844,000 tourists in 2008 compared with 1.1 million registered by Keny a during the same period.

But organisers of the Hike4Life challenge expressed optimism about the impact the event had on the country’s tourism sector.

“We are delighted to have hosted this event in Uganda. Many of the participants had never travelled to this country; the hiking challenge offered them an opportunity to experience the hospitality and warmth of its people, as well as discover the magnificent countryside,” said Mahmood Ahmed, the Aga Khan Development Network resident representative in Uganda, during the event.

The Uganda hiking challenge raised some $250,000 which is to be injected into the ongoing humanitarian activities in Afghanistan and India. This is in contrast to previous Hike4Life events that raised an average of $500,000 each.

Relief efforts

Focus was established in 1994 by the Ismaili Community and is an affiliate of the AKDN — a group of private and international agencies who foster social welfare activities in developing countries. Focus’ speciality is international crisis response and disaster management interventions particularly in Asia — Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. Interventions have also taken place in Madagascar and Mozambique.

So far, Focus has held eight Hike4Life events. The inaugural edition was held in Egypt in 2002 and involved a bikathon along the River Nile. Subsequent events included a climbing challenge hosted by Kenya in 2003 and a hiking event around Mt Kilimanjaro in 2007.

Through deeper outreach networks in various parts of Asia, Focus is able to supplement relief efforts of large international aid bodies such as the Red Cross, Oxfam and the World Food Program.However, officials are concerned that the need for humanitarian assistance is rising faster than they can mobilise ample resources.

Shahed Karim, board member of Focus Europe attributed the trend to the severe effects of climate change that are often blamed on industrial pollution prevalent in the developed world.

The East African

Mobile Internet generation targeted by Google's smart phone

2010-01-11T19:11:00.005+03:00

By Miguel Helft

Google’s unveiling on Tuesday of a rival to the iPhone is part of its plan to try to do what few other technology companies have done — retain its leadership as computing shifts from one generation to the next.

The rapid emergence of the smartphone as a versatile computing device may be as much a challenge as it is an opportunity for Google, which built its multibillion-dollar empire largely on the sale of small text ads linked to search queries typed on PCs.

As people increasingly rely on powerful mobile phones instead of PCs to access the Web, their surfing habits are bound to change. What’s more, online advertising could lose its role as the Web’s primary economic engine, putting Google’s leadership role into question. “The new paradigm is mobile computing and mobility,” said David B. Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School. “That has the potential to change the economics of Internet business and to redistribute profits yet again.”In recent decades, the power of industry giants like IBM and Microsoft, waned as computing shifted from big mainframes to PCs, and from PCs to the Internet.

Many analysts say it is now Google that is faced with a less certain future in the face of another shift. Still, they say Google saw this coming years ago and has been preparing for it. Google executives now say they are confident that the company will thrive as the mobile Internet grows.

“We are incredibly excited about the opportunities that we see in mobile,” Vic Gundotra, a vice president of engineering at Google who oversees mobile applications, said last week. “We have invested a considerable amount, and we can now really provide a compelling mobile experience.”Top Google executives, including Eric E. Schmidt, the chief executive, have long said the mobile Internet was Google’s biggest opportunity for new growth.

They orchestrated a string of acquisitions of companies with mobile-related technology, including Android, maker of a cell phone operating system; GrandCentral, a service for making calls that can bypass telephone lines; and AdMob, an advertising network for mobile applications. The AdMob deal is awaiting approval from regulators. Google also invested far more aggressively than its competitors in mapping technologies and services tied to a user’s location, which are likely to become the vital underpinnings of new advertising systems on GPS-equipped mobile phones.

The unveiling of the Nexus One, a thin, touch-screen handset built to Google’s specifications and made by the Taiwanese company HTC, is a challenge to a newly minted industry power: Apple, whose iPhone dominates the high end of the smartphone market.

While the iPhone sends millions of people to Google’s search and other services, some of the company’s applications, like Google Voice, have not been allowed to run on the phone.Analysts say that with the Nexus One, which Google plans to sell to consumers directly, the company is trying to free itself from Apple’s growing influence. It also wants to broaden the appeal of Android’s technology.

The phone is expected to be sold unlocked, allowing consumers to buy service plans separately.Gundotra declined to discuss specifics of the Nexus One. But he said all of Google’s mobile moves were driven by one objective: Pushing the industry to open up in an attempt to replicate on mobile phones the environment that has allowed the PC-driven Web to grow at explosive rates.

Some of Google’s moves, like its bid for spectrum, confounded many in the industry. But analysts say Google’s actions proved shrewd and that the company has, to a large extent, helped open up the mobile Web and ensured that its services, and ads, will be accessible to all.“You could take a view that this is a very geeky company,” said Nicholas Carr, author of The Big Switch, a book about the shift to Internet computing. “That underestimates the strategy that underlies all these moves.”

New York Times

Mumbere crowned King of Rwenzururu

2009-10-25T17:34:00.012+03:00

By Raymond Baguma
and John Thawite (New Vision)

A National conference for leaders of cultural institutions is coming, President Yoweri Museveni said at Mumbere's Coronation.

“We restored these kingdoms but we have not discussed with them in detail how they should work in harmony with the Government,” the President explained.

He was was speaking at a ceremony where he recognised the Obusinga (kingdom) of Rwenzururu and King Charles Wesley Mumbere.

During a ritual at a palace in Kasese, the President laid his hands on Mumbere’s left shoulder and then addressed the kingdom’s parliament.

Mumbere ascended to the throne on October 19, 1966. He succeeded his father Isaya Mukirane, who had launched the Rwenzururu armed struggle against the Toro kingdom. Thousands of loyalists turned up at the Kilembe Golf Course to witness the event, which also marked 43 years since Mumbere ascended the throne.

The regional Police spokesperson, Elly Matte, estimated the crowd at 60,000 people.

Museveni said traditional institutions were restored in areas where the people demanded them. He said Ankole kingdom could not be restored because the people rejected it.

He said the people of Kasese had shown love for their monarchy in line with Article 246 of the Constitution, which allows the restoration of old kingdoms and creation of new ones.

“I have proof the people of Kasese wanted Obusinga. The proof was based on a resolution passed by Kasese district council, elders and other people who sent me signed resolutions. So, I have come to show the Government support for this cultural institution.”

He said the involvement of traditional institutions in politics was detrimental to the culture of the people. He noted that cultural institutions should avoid creating tension among the different communities.

He cited Bundibugyo district, where the Bamba were opposed to the Rwenzururu kingdom and promised to discuss with Mumbere how the Bamba and Bakonjo could peacefully co-exist.

“Handle the issue carefully so that you do not create tension out of a new cultural institution,” he advised Mumbere.

“The Bamba told me clearly that they don’t want to be associated with the cultural institution. Nobody can be forced to support a cultural institution against their will. They should not worry because the centre of the institution is in Kasese, where there is consensus,” Museveni added.

He thanked the residents of Kasese for supporting the Government to defeat the ADF rebels. He said cultural institutions were vital in preserving culture and promoting indigenous languages. He urged the Rwenzururu kingdom to fulfill this role.

He said the king would start getting a monthly stipend and promised him a vehicle and a palace.

He urged the Rwenzururu people to embrace the Government programmes in agriculture, the universal primary and secondary education, mass immunisation and the HIV/AIDS prevention campaign.

Mumbere assured the President that his kingdom would work closely with the NRM government.

“Obusinga will always be non-political and implement its activities in a cultural manner, as culture transcends politics.”
The king’s speech was disrupted by a downpour, which forced people to flee for shelter.

The king appealed to his people to abandon armed conflicts which have characterised the cultural institution. “I ask all Banyarwenzururu to return all sorts of weapons to the armoury,” he appealed.

He said the kingdom would focus on education, health, roads, clean water and sanitation.

The coronation was attended by a delegation from the DR Congo led by the minister of culture and arts, Esdros Kambale. It included the Congolese ambassador, Charles Okoto, and MPs.

There were also delegations from across Toro kingdom.

UGANDA: Bwindi, Where Gorillas Come First

2009-10-13T19:06:00.005+03:00

By Mike Ssegawa

Travelling is like falling in love. You can get swept off your feet by a new place you've visited and in the process, build an attachment to it never to be forgotten. Having been to Bwindi in Kisoro last month for the first time, I can conclude I'm in love. I am not a well travelled person.

Travel is one of those subjects I am not comfortable talking about because apart from Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia, I have not visited any other place outside dear Uganda. For me, Arusha is the most beautiful town in East Africa and Maasai Mara the most sacred animal sanctuary. But Bwindi is the place I fell in love with nature.

I grew up listening to stories about apes, like the clever monkey, the "cannibal" chimpanzee, and the "rapist" baboon. All these apes are interesting animals to watch and available in Uganda. I grew up fighting monkeys that raided our crops; at 10, I saw a chimp at the Uganda Wild Life Centre in Entebbe when my school took us for a tour, and baboons spoilt my appetite on several journeys made along Jinja-Busia road on my way to Kenya. Yet, it was the gorilla I have paid the most to see, and for that, I am not about to let go.

Not that I parted with the $500 for the gorilla permit foreigners buy to have an opportunity to look at one of the world's endangered species. And as a Ugandan, I didn't pay the Shs150,000 locals and East Africans are charged to spend less than one hour with man's cousins. Opportunity struck when Nshongi Gorilla Sanctuary in Bwindi was opened to the public for the first time last month. After a 10-hour drive to Kisoro's chilly hills, memories of a 19-year-old who entered Nairobi for the first time in June at the start of the millennium came flooding back. Like then, I had only a T-shirt on and no jacket in my bag, ignorant of the fact that the place I was going to was very cold compared to central Uganda, a place I was raised and could walk shirtless even when it is raining.

On that fateful day in Nairobi, the temperatures had gone down to 16 degrees, and while people in Europe could be laughing out loud, for me it was too cold for comfort and I had to buy a jacket on the street. Now in Nshongi, Rubuguri Parish in Kisoro District, the same cold bit my body. Without a jacket or warm clothes, I was left with no option but to put on all the shirts I had in my bag. When I looked outside the window, the village boys were playing football shirtless and small children barely wore anything on them. That's how relative life can be.

That evening, we spent the night at Gorilla Safari Lodge, where the Tourism Minister, Kahinda Otafiire, was also a resident. This man is full of jokes, but not even laughter sent the chill away. I was relieved when a fireplace to warm our bodies was hurriedly set up at the minister's request. The next day, we woke up at 7:30a.m and prepared to intrude the gorillas' privacy (the guide said they don't enjoy people's company). Reaching the forest's entry point, there was a sea of foreign and local press. When the guide received the notification on his walkie-talkie that we were free to start on our journey, every one of us (about 30 journalists) dashed into the first part of the forest and stopped at about 200 metres for the briefing.

Kisoro, where the forest is located, is a hilly place. The people there are farmers and make use of the hills and valleys, right.

In Bwindi, the gorillas seem to be more important than human beings; at least their interests come before those of human beings. "If anyone wants to ease themselves, use the toilets here because we cannot allow you to leave your excretion in the deeper forest since it could contaminate the gorillas," the senior warden, Pontius Ezuma, said. The second rule was, "If you have any contagious disease, please stay here, because we don't want you to pass it on to the gorillas."

Our guide, Benjamin Bayinda, who seemed to enjoy every inch of the forest, promised to give us more briefings about gorilla trekking along the way, but first we were warned not to give the gorillas any foods, and each one of us was encouraged to go up with a stick. "You may leave the stick behind at your own risk," another warden joked. Some did go with their sticks. Others didn't give heed to the advice. Two rangers with guns went ahead of us, and the third came behind the group. That's how much protection we needed. Not your ordinary forest!

This forest is not that different from the rain forests you may have been to. As a little boy, I spent four years in Lwanunda, a village four miles out of Masaka town. There, I experienced the pleasures of the forest, but most of them had traces of human activities.

We walked miles to collect firewood, but it was not about the firewood; rather the fun - despite parental warnings that those forests had misambwa (ghosts) - it excited us. We ate fruits, played gogolo (sliding down the hill while sitting on a banana stem), swam in the rivers, swung on the climbing plants of the forest and chased monkeys. This is what I recalled as we trekked mile after mile through Bwindi. The more we went into the forest, the deeper and larger than life it seemed - Bwindi Impenetrable is about 330sq km. Its paths are still fresh, and as I said earlier, loggers or charcoal burners must want to visit this forest. Nothing is touched, save for the Batwa people, who still prefer to hunt animals, among which are gorillas, for food.

The sound of River Nshongi, which runs through the forest down to Lake Edward through Lake Albert before it joins the River Nile on its way to Egypt, made the quiet forest alive. As we walked through, the guide told us to remain silent since the forest had several animals like elephants that detest human intrusion and would defend their territory at all costs. That warning fell on deaf ears. One hour of walking and the gorillas were nowhere in sight. I had not seen any elephants either. And yet, the paths were slippery.

I was wearing the shoes I bought for my friend's wedding, and here I was, stepping in the mud like the pair cost me a few shillings! We crossed river after river, jumped stream after stream, stone after stone and fallen trees along the path. Then we started seeing elephant dung, a sign the elephants were not far from us. At some point, the guide stopped us. "This is where we met a group of gorillas," he said, showing us the side of the river which looked like a playing field for the animals. He said, "We named the group Nshongi, because we found it on Nshongi River."
The weather in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest is so cold; in the evenings, the whole forest is engulfed in fog.

It was time for new instructions: When we meet the gorillas, make sure you keep a distance of seven metres. This is to protect both the gorilla and you. Leave the sticks behind. Gorillas will think you're out to attack them and they will go out to defend themselves. Remain in a tight group. Don't drink or smoke. Keep your voices low. Do not run or turn your back on the silverback. Don't keep eye contact with the gorillas, especially the silverback.

"Do you need to know why it is so important to keep the rules? Well, gorillas however much they resemble human beings, are still animals. This particular group of gorillas has just gone through a habituation process. It has taken the wardens two years to familiarise them with human contact," Bayinda said. He added that the gorillas would do their best to fight, ignore and distance themselves from people as much as they could, till after habituation, apart from the silverback charging whenever it senses a new person, all this is to protect its clan.

Bayinda told us Bwindi was declared by UNESCO a world heritage site in 1994 and the forest contained half of the world's about 720 gorillas. In Nshongi, the habituated group has about 34 gorillas, with three silverbacks and eight black backs. Every gorilla unit is led by a silverback. A male gorilla becomes a silver back at about 14 years and a black back at about 12. After a long lecture in "gorilla-tactics", we moved on, this time expecting the animals to be in the vicinity. But no, we had more miles ahead. We had been told that we were using a track with a lot of bird species. I wasn't interested in birds, though I saw very few of them. The guide also told us that forest kobs were in plenty. I saw none. Tracking gorillas is not a thing for the faint-hearted.

Three hours into the forest, I started to ask myself why I had come. I was afraid I would fail to reach the place gorillas had relocated to that morning. My heart was skipping, but I moved on. I was looking forward to something special, so I persevered. Sometimes the only way up was to dig one's fingers into the soil to find a firm root, holding on to trees or the person above to pull you. Somewhere between the hills, we could hear the female colleagues we had left behind groaning. Despite their falling several times, they made it.

The forest continued far above our heads, and the river, we could see, was nowhere near its source, at least for me to declare, "This source has been discovered by Mike Ssegawa". After three and half hours of nonstop trekking, the guide announced that the gorillas were close by. We were divided into three smaller groups of 10. "The gorillas hate to see many people at once," the guide reminded us. The first group went up. The rest of us sat on the stones, waiting for their 15 minutes of gorilla-love. Seven minutes later, Warden Ezume said there was a strong smell of gorillas. I didn't smell anything however. And he was surprised. Two minutes later, he got a signal that the gorillas were on their way down in our direction. We had to change positions, to give them the right of way.

It's nice being a gorilla in Bwindi. Then, I heard the first gorilla sound. One girl shouted, "There it is", but I didn't see a thing, though the trees were shaking about 100 metres away. Minutes later, I saw black animals disappearing into the thick bush. It was my first glimpse of the gorilla, but I told myself if this was what I had come to see, then it was a raw deal. As I thought that, I think the gods of Bwindi got angry and without any warning, sent a heavy downpour. I did not have a jacket on me. And my camera was not well protected, not forgetting my non-safari shoes which until now I had managed to safeguard from severe damage.

When the guides said my group was next, I was taking refuge in one of the wardens' raincoat. But I had to go and see the gorillas and went into the rain. And without minding my already wet clothes, Italian leather shoes, or even camera, I went close to the animals. Not seven metres away, but three. It was a fulfilling experiencing.

Now that I had seen the gorillas, I had nothing to lose. Even if it meant walking back to the hotel naked. The young gorillas played around the trees as the silverback ate grass, unmindful of being watched as the cameras clicked. It was like Paris Hilton on the red carpet. We didn't watch the gorillas for only 15 minutes like the others, ours was like forever. No one minded how wet we got. The gorillas too enjoyed our company. I like looking at pregnant women, but the site of a pregnant gorilla I saw eating a local herb, ebbombo, was fabulous too.

After everyone had quenched their thirst, we left, stepping into the river at will, falling like no one cared. All we wanted was to return to the place we would find some warmth. Funny though that no one remembered the rules. We turned our backs to the gorillas and they didn't mind us. We walked down at a speedy pace, this time in groups. The sun briefly found its way through the forest, and just after colleague said, "Wow, this forest is truly gifted by nature", another downpour ensured, ensuring that we exited the forests not bothered anymore about how wet we were.

I had fallen five times. But who was I not to fall? After all, one would imagine military generals most fit, but General Otafiire got his share and he left the forest limping and I didn't! We looked around for our driver, rushed to the hotel, and got into the shower room, where I thought about my achievement of the day. I looked through the window at the forest before me, which was now covered in fog. I thought about the gorillas inside the forest feeling the cold.

I imagined what I could do if I was asked to do the trekking once again, this time, to offer them a fire for warmth. Then I remembered that a cold forest was their part of their life. When I could not see the trees anymore but the fog, it felt like I had left a friend behind in the mist. Trekking had made me connect with the forest, and of course, the gorillas. The impression is not going away any time soon. Bwindi, I am thinking about you.

Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel to Climb Mt. Kilimanjaro

2009-10-08T15:54:00.002+03:00

By TEA CORRESPONDENT

Singer Justin Timberlake and actress Jessica Biel have signed on to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in January 2010. They will be accompanied by rapper Lupe Fiasco and actress Isabel Lucas who are all going with the “Summit on the Summit” expedition a brain child of Ethiopian born singer Kenna.

“I have been training four times a week to get my VO2 (oxygen consumption) levels up to expand my lungs,” Justin told GQ.

In a statement about her decision to climb the more than 19,000 feet mountain to the peak, Biel said, “This is a basic human necessity that needs to be addressed now”.
For Kenna whose father suffered from water borne diseases in Ethiopia as a child, the effort to bring awareness to a world wide danger is something that hits very close to home. “My dad almost died as a child from water borne diseases in Ethiopia and he had talked to me about digging a well there and I thought, ‘I have too many friends who would be concerned with the subject of clean water. May be I can help out,’ “Kenna told ELLE magazine in a recent interview.

The climb will also help raise funds for United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Play Pumps International and the Children’s safe drinking water programme.

New Vessels for Kalangala

2009-10-08T09:27:00.004+03:00

By TEA Reporter,

KALANGALA district made up of several scattered islands is to acquire two new ferries by June 2010, Deo Nsereko, the resident district commissioner, has said.

Currently, there is only one ferry - MV Kalangala, operating the Kampala-Kalangala islands route.

“The two new, ‘modern and reliable’ ferries will work concurrently with MV Kalangala at the Nakiwogo landing site,” Nsereko added.

He said the ferries would help islanders, to ease the hardships over transport.

“Recently, when MV Kalangala was not working, the movement of people and goods was affected,” noted. MV Kalangala had gone for periodic mandatory docking inspection in Mwanza, Tanzania.

The vessel underwent minor repairs and resumed operations last month.

“The ministry of Transport & Works is committed to maintaining effective transport services in the country,” Susan Kataike, the works ministry spokesperson, said recently.

New Planes For East African Civil Aviation Academy

2009-10-08T09:11:00.004+03:00

By TEA Reporter,

THE Government is to buy six new aircrafts for the East African Civil Aviation Academy - that is commonly referred to as Soroti Flying School.

Edith Mwanje, the East African Community affairs ministry permanent secretary, said this during a regional workshop for central Uganda leaders at Hotel Africana in Kampala last week.

She said the procurement of the new planes would be done under a three-year capital development project designed by the Government to rehabilitate the academy.

The six computerised single-engine planes would cost sh4b. The first batch of the aircrafts arrives this financial year, she added.

The single engine Cessna 172 aircraft has modern aviation technology. Which, Mwanje said, would equip and acquaint the pilot students with the required aviation skills.

The school has 58 privately sponsored students using the old Cessna aircraft manufactured in the early 1960s.

The academy was built as a training school for the British Overseas Airways Corporation to train British pilots in tropical flying techniques. It was later used by the East African Flying Academy to train pilots from the former community.

“Since the collapse of the East African community in 1977, this school has been neglected. However, with its revival, plans are under way to renovate it at a cost of US$900,000 (about Ush 1.73b),” Mwanje added.

The project also includes renovation of the old buildings and acquisition of new computers.

$3m Grant from US to Save Lake Victoria and Mara River Basins

2009-10-05T19:08:00.002+03:00

By Trek East Africa Correspondent
Nairobi, Kenya

A three year funding agreement between the East African Community and the United States Agency for International Development is expected to ensure that the Mara River Basin is properly managed so as to avoid environmental degradation. The Mara River Basin eco system is considered a new wonder of the world.

Under the agreement signed two weeks ago, East Africa Community’s Lake Victoria Basin Commission is expected to implement the Mara River Basins 2009 Bio diversity Action Plan that was recently adopted by the EAC Ministers.

Aimed at addressing threats to bio diversity hotspots in the Mara River Basin, the projects implementation will involve Kenya and Tanzania government agencies where the $3 million grant will be provided under US Aid Africa’s Tran boundary Water for Diversity.

The Mara basin water shed extends from Kenya to northern Tanzania covering areas of Maasai Mara Game Reserve, Serengeti National Park and also makes up part of the eastern rim of the Lake Victoria basin.

This eco systems survival depends on the flow of the Mara River. With less water flowing in the Mara, there is a possibility of less water to drink for wildlife and this could easily lead to human wildlife conflicts.

Rotich, the Deputy Secretary General in charge of Finance and Administration at the East African Community emphasized the importance of the Mara River Basin eco system. He said the intervention on the Mara River Basin was timely, since environmental issues in particular global climate change are affecting all people.

“You don’t have to spend a lot of time trying to convince people about the environmental devastation that is being experienced. Rains are failing, rivers are drying up or getting polluted. We have all contributed to environmental degradation. And now we must do something about it”, he added.

Lake Victoria Basin Commission was established in 2005 as a specialized institution of the East African Community responsible for coordination of activities aimed at sustainable development of the basin.

BAKONZO - BAMBA CELEBRATE BIRTH OF RWENZURURU PRINCE

2009-10-02T09:47:00.003+03:00

By John B. Nzinjah

A prince has been born to Iremangoma Charles Wesley Mumbere, the cultural head of the Rwenzururu kingdom.
The news was the talk of Kasese town, with local FM radio stations receiving numerous calls congratulating the Omusinga and the Queen.

The kingdom spokesperson, Godfrey Kabyanga, yesterday said: “The Omusinga was present at Kampala International Hospital when the prince was delivered on Wednesday. The queen, Agnes Ithungo and the baby are in good health.”

Many people said this was a double blessing since it comes ahead of the coronation celebrations on October 19.

The Bamba-Bakonzo king will also mark his 43rd anniversary since he took over the Rwenzururu Kingdom after the death of his farther, Isaya Mukirania Kibanzanga.

Kibanzanga was among the Bamba fighters who led a rebellion against the Toro kingdom, demanding independence in 1962.

SINGLE TOURIST VISA TO BE ISSUED BY EAST AFRICA MEMBER STATES

2009-10-01T16:51:00.006+03:00

By Arthur Baguma

The East African Community plans to start a single tourist visa for the region. The member states are discussing a protocol to create and market the region as a single tourist destination. Member states have started to coordinate their policies in the tourism industry and were establishing a frame work that would ensure equitable distribution of resources. In addition the partner states are establishing a common code of conduct for private and public tour and travel operators, standardized hotel classification and professional standards of agents in the industry.

A collective policy for the conservation and sustainable utilization of wildlife and other tourist sites in the region is also in pipeline.

“They include harmonizing policies for the conservation of wildlife within and outside protected areas, exchanging information and adopting common policies on wildlife management and development, coordinating efforts in controlling and monitoring encroachment and poaching activities,” information at the EAC states. The policy encourages joint use of training and research facilities and developing common management plans for trans-border protected areas.

These developments are good news to East Africa tourism potential. From some of the world’s finest beaches to unique wildlife sanctuaries East Africa is a tourism hub. In Uganda the unique wildlife sanctuaries East Africa is a tourism hub. In Uganda the unique Bwindi National Park home to some 340 mountain gorillas, the Murchison Falls and Queen Elizabeth National Park are also preferred sites for tourists. In Kenya, the magnificent Maasai Mara reserve, among 48 wildlife parks and reserves, including the amazing Amboseli and Tsavo National Parks attract tourists both local and international. In Tanzania, the world famous Ngorongoro crater, the breath taking spectacular Serengeti plains, wildlife conservation areas and Mt. Kilimanjaro – Africa’s highest mountain are just the tip of the ice berg of what Tanzania can offer tourists.

Apart from the scenic attractions, East Africa has a lot more to offer. Hotel and beach tourism is at its peak. The region offers a large number of historical sites spread through the region. It boasts of interesting traditional culture, the Makonde sculptures and Akamba wood crafts as well as the Uganda Kingdoms, cultures and tradition. The Olduvai Gorge in the Great Rift Valley in Tanzania is the site of discoveries of the traces of early humanity.

There is, however potential for development, expansion and promotion of East African tourism, taking into account on going development of tourism and other potential of the lake Victoria basin. The world’s second largest fresh water body is shared by Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.

The number of tourists to the East African region increased significantly between 1995 and 2002.In Tanzania the number increased from 285,000 to 550,000 while in Uganda it increased from 160,000 to 254,000. In Kenya there was a slight decline from 896,000 to 838,000 but the figures rose to one million in 2003.

Currently the three countries attract more than two million tourists. The figures indicate a vibrant trend of the tourist sector in East Africa. With joint promotion of the industry, tourist visits in East Africa are expected to double in the near future. In 2005, the East African Community countries launched the plan for joint tourism and wildlife development including joint marketing and promotion of East Africa as a single tourist destination.

Starting with the Internationale Tourismus Borse (ITB), Berlin 2006, the tourist boards of East African countries participate in international trade fairs under one roof, the East African Village exhibition area. On going activities aim at developing both short and long term measures in the joint promotion and marketing of East Africa as a single tourist destination.

The plan and strategy for joint development and promotion of tourism envisages steady growth due to stable political and peaceful conditions prevailing in the region coupled with modernization of infrastructure, transport and communications facilities and links to all parts of the world by major world air lines and ocean cruises.

TOURISM: RWANDA’S MAJOR FOREIGN EXCHANGE EARNER

2009-10-01T15:29:00.004+03:00

By George Kalisa

Rwanda’s experience shows that the road to total liberation of the people has neither been straight nor smooth. Faced with the challenge of improving the lives of Rwandans in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide, President Paul Kagame has met barriers ranging from political to economic ones, a high ranking government official has said. The international perception of the country was a major hold up to efforts to the liberation of the Rwandans from all forces that denied them human dignity. The world knew Rwanda for the genocide.

However Kagame and his government have triumphed over a sea of problems and Rwandans are already reaping the fruits of Kagame’s vision says Rosette Rugamba, the deputy chief executive officer of Rwanda Development Board in charge of Tourism and conservation.

The enterprising President looked at tourism as a potential sector in reconstructing the economy hence the re launch of the industry in 2003 on two definitive fronts – domestic and international tourism.

Domestic tourism focused on creating a culture of appreciation of the intrinsic value of and benefit of the sector to the economy while international tourism positioned Rwanda as a high end destination that put conservation and the environment first.

Rugamba adds that the security and stability in the country spur growing investment in the sector.

“The journey of the tourism sector in Rwanda started with the vision of our President six years ago. We are now harvesting six years of solid investment in destination tourism positioning, continuous improvements in the product backed by unwavering government support. With out doubt, the peace and security we enjoy in this country have been enabling factors,” Rugamba said.

Rugamba says although they have achieved many successes, Rwanda has not yet realized its dream tourism industry, adding that more innovations are needed.

“While we celebrate where we are today, we all believe that we still have a long way to go. The year on year growth is testimony that we are doing something right as a nation, “Rugamba said in an interview.

In 2003, only 16,000 visitors went to Rwanda compared to 980,577 in 2008. By June 2009, 440,000 visitors had been to the country. The increase in the number of visitors has meant increase in revenue and expansion of tourism infrastructure and tour operator agencies over the years.

Revenue upped from $8m in 2003 to $209m in 2008, while hotel rooms increased from 650 to 4,256.

Currently, Rwanda boasts of 189 hotels compared to just 30 in 2003. Besides being the number one foreign exchange earner for three consecutive years, the sectors competitive performance globally has improved ten fold the country’s image.

For the third time Rwanda was this year voted best African exhibitor at ITB Berlin, the worlds largest tourism trade fair. It was also voted among the “Top 10” tourism destinations in the world by Lonely Planet (2009), a travel guide in the United Kingdom. Early this year, Rwanda mountain gorilla trekking was ranked among the top green travel experiences in the world by the latest Rough Guide’s publication, 500 New Ways to see the World.

Rwanda’s gorilla experience was also listed in the publication Unforgettable journeys you must take before you die by Steve Watkins and Clare Jones as one of the 50 things you must do before you die.

The influx of international celebrities into the country is evident of growing tourism. These include; Jack Hanna (world’s conservation icon), CNN founder, Ted Turner and Catherine Crier.

Gorilla naming ceremony: it is one of the sector’s land mark innovations and one of the most recognized conservation events on the world tourism calendar.

Kwita Izina, as the gorilla naming ceremony is locally referred to, was launched in 2005 by Kagame. A total of 105 baby gorillas have been named since Kwita Izina ceremonies started. The annual ceremony has attracted high profile people locally and internationally, including Hollywood celebrities and world renowned conservationists. Kwita Izina is a celebration of successes in protecting the mountain gorilla and the environment it lives in.

Over $2m has been raised through the event and has been spent on supporting the communities that live outside the mountains of the Virungas.

Rugamba says Rwanda expects tourism revenues to hit $278m by 2012, adding that in the offing is a 10 year master plan, an initiation that will take the sector to greater heights.

New Products: Central to Rwanda’s tourism strategy has been the development of new diverse products. They include avi tourism, Nyungwe National Park, Akagera Savannah Park and conference tourism.

In 2008, we launched the birding product (avi tourism) at the birding fair in UK, says Rugamba. Rwanda hosts over 700 bird species of which 44 are endemic to Rwanda. It is anticipated that birding will contribute 10% to Rwanda’s tourism receipts by 2010. The Nyungwe forest trails are offering nature hikes and an opportunity to see over 13 primate species, including chimpanzees.

By the end of the year, two lodge s will be opened in Nyungwe and the canopy walk will be launched in the heart of the forest, the first of its kind in Eastern Africa.

The government is currently restocking and up grading accommodation facilities in Akagera National Park.

Rugamba discloses that a 20 seat leisure boat will be commissioned on Lake Kivu in October. The boat will enable tourists to visit islands on the lake.

Commenting on conference tourism, Rugamba said; “Our fastest growing product has to be conference tourism. Rwanda has become a much sought after destination for multi sectral, regional, continental and international conferences. In the first half of 2009, 189,857 (43%) of the visitors who came to Rwanda came for business purposes. In 2010, we hope to have set up a convention bureau to manage and coordinate conferences”.

Rugamba added, “With Rwanda becoming part of East Africa, we shall continue to work on promoting East Africa as a single destination and working on fast tracking of the East Africa single visa. The East Africa standards are already in place and Rwanda has started preparing the hotels for classification”.