Intelligent Travel

Saving Africa's Lions

Imagine for a moment that you are a Maasai tribesman in Kenya and your entire livelihood is invested in your livestock. One day, a lion attacks one of your cows, killing it. Enraged, you set about to seek justice and protect your cattle from further harm. But justice today is not the same as it once was. The Maasai once used spears alone to take down lions, but now, with the rise of poisonous insecticides, it's simple for you to spread some poison on the carcass while the lion has wandered away. When the lion returns with its cubs, it ingests the poison. But so does the rest of the pride. In the span of a few hours, an entire family of lions is wiped out. Your cattle are safe...for now. But there are side effects: The region's economy, dependent on tourism, becomes unstable, and the fragile ecosystem of East Africa is shattered.

This was the reality facing Tom Hill, who began his work on lion conservation efforts in the Kenyan bush 16 years ago. As a trustee of the Maasailand Preservation Trust (known as the Ol Donyo Wuas Trust in Kenya), Hill has worked on the Mbirikani Group Ranch; and he has watched the population of lions deteriorate in the Amboseli-Tsavo Ecosystem (Located at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro). The arrival of poison in the region has only hastened the problem. In 2003, he says, "We lost eight lions in one afternoon. It was the last great pride of the Chyulu Hills."

It was shortly after losing that pride that Hill and his co-founder, Richard Bonham, began speaking with the Maasai community about creating a better way to account for their losses. The MPT had long been established in the region and had relationships with tribal elders. But, Hill says, they needed to find a reason to make it worthwhile for the 10,000 people in the community to want to live alongside such beasts. "We realized that if we didn’t do something significant the lion population was going to go extinct," he says. "So we sat under trees with elders for months talking about life for the Maasai and the nature of conflict with wildlife. We tried to see how could we develop a solution that could stabilize the predator population, and save them from extinction, while saving the quality of life for the people." It was out of those meetings that they developed a novel system called the Mbirikani Predator Compensation Fund.

All Roads Spotlight: Ethiopia

As part of our All Roads Film Festival coverage, today IT talks to filmmaker Daniel Taye Workou, whose film Menged is featured on the newly released All Roads Film Festival 5th Anniversary Collection DVD Set. Workou is a filmmaker of Ethiopian descent and Menged is his first fiction short, which was shot in and around his grandfather’s village in Ethiopia. It is a modern adaptation of a folk tale about a father and son on their way to market and the people they encounter along the way. 

The 2008 All Roads film festival begins this Friday in Los Angeles at the historic Egyptian Theatre.  A National Geographic program, All Roads provides an international platform for indigenous and underrepresented minority-culture artists to share their cultures, stories, and perspectives through the power of film and photography.

How did you get into filmmaking?

I got into filmmaking quite late. I came to Paris to do a masters in international relations, but I quickly learned that Paris is not only the City of Light but also the city with the most films on screen in cinemas every day. As a student you can enter a lot of cinemas for free. It was then that I started to become what the French call a cinephile. Three years later I went to film school in New York.

What is the story behind this film?

The story was one of my favorite tales my father used to tell us when we were kids. It left a big impression on me. My father moved back to Ethiopia some 30 years ago. I used to visit him frequently and I watched the country going through all kinds of changes politically, economically, and culturally. As my father grew older I wanted to spend more time with him and was looking for projects in Ethiopia.

When I visited my grandparents in the countryside I was looking for a story to place here. Observing the people and the dilemma they live in I remembered the story. I tried to adapt it to the situation there now and incorporate the elements which have an impact on the rural society in Ethiopia today: religion, globalization and international organizations. I decided to make it a comedy because humor is an important part of our culture.

Global Eye: The White Desert, Egypt

White Desert, Egypt

Photographer: Anja Cronenberg from Haarlem, the Netherlands.

Getting the Shot: I don't understand why the White Desert isn't much more famous than it is. With its white chalk rock formations, the White Desert is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. It is located in the Libyan desert, close to the Farafra oasis, in between Dakhla and Bahariya (west-central Egypt). You have to travel off road with a jeep (and a guide) to get there.

The Details: I took the photo just a few minutes before sunset. At that time the light seemed to change the landscape into a pink and blue pastel drawing. Being in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by all those surreal rock formations gave me goose bumps of pure happiness. Believe me, it really did! That night we slept on the sand under a sky with so many stars that I felt like I was in a planetarium.

This particular rock formation is called "The chicken and the mushroom." I've got a similar photo without people in it, but I like this one better because they give scale to those rocks.

The photo is from September of 2002, made with a Canon EOS300 with standard 28-80 lens. At that time I always used Fuji 200 ISO slide film.

We love how surreal the landscape is in this shot, and how the people are so dwarfed by the rock formations. Think your photo is good enough for Global Eye? Add your photos to our Flickr pool and we may feature them on the blog.

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Light on Your Feet

I feel like I've been hopping on flights nonstop over the last few weeks, and despite dealing with some airport struggles and the knowledge that I need to tally up my carbon footprint, I attribute a continuous spring in my step to my new travel shoes: Toms. Produced in factories that pay their workers a fair wage, these incredibly lightweight canvas shoes collapse into nothing in a suitcase. And for every pair you buy, they donate a pair to kids in need—so far, 10,000 pairs in Argentina and 50,000 in South Africa. Toms have a leather-lined sole that's surprisingly supportive, great for biking or wandering the streets during your travels. And their slip-on design is great for airport check-in lines. They're available in a variety of colors (like my cute polka-dot numbers), and the Toms team encourages you to buy their plain white kicks and decorate them yourself.

Apparently these shoes also encourage traveling: While poking around their website, I noticed that they plan to give away 200,000 pair of shoes around the world this year, and they accept applications from people who want to travel with them on their international "Shoe-Drops." They've also created a promotion team called the "Vagabonds," that will travel the country visiting college campuses, high schools, and communities, spreading the word about these cool shoes (and their spring semester team is still accepting applications).

Photo: Janelle models her Toms at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Rwandan Lodge Focuses on Gorilla Conservation

During Rwanda’s annual gorilla-naming ceremony (called Kwita Izina), officials decided to name one baby gorilla “Sacola,” namesake of a trust that owns and manages a new lodge in the Virunga heartland that aims to preserve the future of little Sacola and the region’s other 700+ mountain gorillas.

The Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge, or SSL, opened officially on June 21 in the midst of this year’s Kwita Izina, and sits near the rarefied habitat of the highly endangered mountain gorilla. By channeling portions of guest fees toward both habitat and local community conservation, SSL hopes to create a “win-win” situation for a region plagued by riots, wars, corruption, and gorilla murders.

Not far from the Volcanoes National Park (infamous as a battlefield during Rwandan civil wars in the 1990s), SSL is projected to raise $200,000 in its first year. Already, it has provided jobs for locals, and “all but one of the employees at the lodge are Rwandan,” says Kathleen Goldstein of the African Wildlife Foundation, which is one of the project’s partners.

“The only outside talent at the lodge is an amazing chef recruited from Kenya,” Goldstein explains. “Many of the staff were recruited from the local community and then trained by SSL.”

After the jump: Learn how the lodge's earnings have been put to use so far.

Following in Fossey's Footsteps

38 years ago, Dian Fossey wrote about her encounters with mountain gorillas in Rwanda, Uganda and the Congo, offering a first fascinating peek at how these elusive apes behave in the wild. National Geographic published her account in the January 1970 issue of the magazine, and just republished it this month, along with the original memorable photos, on the NatGeo website, to coincide with the July cover story "Who Murdered the Virunga Gorillas?" Fossey's patient, painstaking work with mountain gorillas convinced the world that these gentle, intelligent creatures were worth protecting, and years later a successful mountain gorilla tourism program was born in Virunga National Park, bringing income and education to local people who trained as wildlife rangers and trackers, and allowed carefully limited views of the gorillas in their native habitat. That success was shattered last year when seven mountain gorillas, known and loved by tourists and the rangers, were mysteriously and inexplicably murdered. 

Despite this setback, several nonprofits are still actively helping to protect the gorillas and the rangers, including the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International. I happened across a blog by McGill University student Sarah Conner from Montreal, who landed a plum internship in Rwanda this summer working for Fossey's foundation. She'll be reporting "on all the programs that Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International helps fund. So I am going to visit all the schools, clinics, and biodiversity programs and interview those involved."  She's got great photos, and you can follow along with her here. More about the Virunga gorillas, and an upcoming National Geographic Channel documentary about them, here.

UPDATE:  A new video about the gorilla murders is now available on the National Geographic site.

Photo: baby mountain gorilla by Tristan 27 via Intelligent Travel Flickr pool.

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Go Team! (To Chicago or Tokyo or Madrid or Rio...)

Even though the Beijing Olympics are practically upon us, the International Olympic Committee is always focused on the future. The IOC just recently announced the shortlist for the XXXI Summer Olympiad, to take place in 2016. Four hopeful cities, Chicago, Tokyo, Madrid, and Rio de Janeiro are now vying for the ultimate sports blazon: being an Olympic host. So we took a moment to handicap the contestants.

Rio is the only candidate in a country which hasn't yet hosted the event, but it is no stranger to big sports competitions, having successfully staged the XV Pan American Games last year. A winning bid for Rio would also mark the first time for the event to be held in South America. Chicago and Tokyo have both won previous bids—Chicago's bid, however, was transferred to St. Louis to coincide with the World's Fair that year (1904)—and the Japanese capital served as host to the Games in 1964. A Madrid win would come 24 years after Barcelona bore that torch for Spain's first Olympics in 1992.

If sports tourism is your thing, you'll be happy to know your destination choices will be narrowed down in October of 2009, when the winning city is announced. In the meantime, you can enjoy more statistics and catch up on bid standings here and here. And if 2016 is too far ahead, and your team-spirit cravings need more immediate satisfaction, you can start planning right away for any of these upcoming global sports events after the jump:

Global Eye: Bandiagara, Mali

Bandiagara, Mali

Photographer: Romel Jacinto, San Francisco, California

Getting the Shot: I used a basic, but very capable point-and-shoot camera, the Canon PowerShot A460. Although I had another SLR-like camera on this trip, the smaller point-and-shot camera was far less intimidating to people and was easier to use to capture candid shots.

The Details: I was in Bandiagara on a bicycle tour with a small group. Bandiagara is a sleepy town and most travelers only stay in briefly to arrange trekking into Dogon country, but our small group stayed an extra day since someone got sick. That extra day gave a chance to meander and soak up the rhythm of local life. I walked around town slowly, just observing and taking photos when I could.

Most people did not want to be photographed. The others cherished it, particularly young children, and they hammed it up for the camera. This girl fell into neither of those categories and seemed completely at ease with the camera. She just seemed so content, strong and serene all at once, so I took the shot quickly and continued my slow stroll through town.

We love the vibrant colors and the way Romel captured the girl's expression. Think you've got a photo that is worthy of Global Eye? Add them to our Flickr pool.

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Voluntour of Duty

National Geographic Traveler's new intern, Catherine Pearson, writes about her own experiences as a voluntourist and is hard at work contacting other voluntour organizations to learn more about them. We'd love to hear from you about your own experiences and recommendations. Please email us with suggestions or leave them in the comments below.

Work hard, play hard. Or, in this case, do both simultaneously. Roof a house, dig a well, nurse a wounded animal … and see the sights in São Paulo.

Voluntourism, a combination of volunteering and travel, is becoming increasingly popular. But this vogue practice is not exactly new. It’s been on the radar for the last fifty years, since the beginning of the Peace Corps and Volunteer Service Overseas.

But unprecedented access to international travel has swung wide the gates to a world of opportunities. Captivity in cubicles and finite vacation time exacerbate the urge to get away and do something great. And now, there's a wave of support for these helping-inclined: Entire websites are now devoted to voluntour possibilities, and travel websites, such as Travelocity.com, have tucked in special sections for the service-savvy jet-setters.

Even more impressive, but harder to come by, are scholarships and funding for these volunteer vacations. Travelocity's Change Ambassadors program offers quarterly grants for those who earnestly desire make a difference but can’t pay their own way. Perhaps sponsoring the voluntourist has become a trend in itself.

An Inconvenient Risk to Great Apes

Here at National Geographic HQ, we have no qualms about broadcasting our love for all things monkey. After all, we work in the hallowed building frequented by the likes of Jane Goodall and Gorillas in the Mist heroine Dian Fossey.

And as it turns out, quite a few of our fellow wanderlusters have also gone ape-crazy: The Guardian says ape tourism has never been more popular. So to say we’re distressed about the recent findings on newfound, fatal respiratory threats to great apes in Africa would be to put it lightly—especially considering the germ-spreading culprits are none other than well-meaning eco-tourists.

The Guardian explains:

[The scientists’] concern follows the first evidence that chimpanzees in Ivory Coast, west Africa, died from HRSV (human respiratory syncytial virus) and HMPV (human metapneumovirus) during outbreaks at the Taï chimpanzee research station. The findings pose a major problem for those protecting the declining populations of gorillas in Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, now numbering less than 650, as well as orangutans in Borneo, thought to number around 15,000. The tourist dollar is essential. It protects the endangered apes from poachers and funds vital work aimed at halting their decline. But this positive aspect of eco-tourism must now be balanced against the negative side-effects if apes, and ape tourism, are to survive.

To eradicate the risks, scientists are calling on ape tourists to wear masks, keep their distance (with at least a 23-foot buffer zone), provide proof of vaccinations, and to disinfect all clothing and footwear.