Deep impact in the wilderness
Mbongeni Mguni | Wednesday November 8, 2023 13:39
The homegrown group celebrated its 40th anniversary recently, sharing the journey of its impact over the decades.
Where others saw a patch of remote savannah, Wilderness’ pioneers were able to spot potential, building value for the company, the community and the country with a non-extractive, sustainable activity. An example of the right thebe spent in the right activity, allowing small beginnings to snowball into significant achievements – or the multiplier effect.
In fact, Okavango Wilderness Safaris (OWS) history is also about multiplying. The company sprang out of an idea by two safari guides working in the remote wilds and has grown to 17 luxury camps in the Okavango Delta.
The areas where OWS operates are some of the most remote and undeveloped in the country, regions of little economic activity and where villagers’ options to make ends meet are limited, often by resources and the environment.
The rise of a robust economic engine in OWS over the years has meant the generation of value to communities, through employment, payment for leases, procurement, education and training as well as various other interventions.
A popular expression at OWS is that “without the wilderness, there would be no Wilderness,” meaning that the remote, breath-taking wilds are key to Wilderness as a commercial and conservation entity.
OWS chair, Kabelo Binns, says the non-consumptive, sustainable activities being done by OWS are also the only ones suited for the sensitive wilderness, hence the importance of ensuring a multiplier effect from the values created there.
“Our business operates in remote rural areas and that’s just by nature what we do,” he says.
“It’s often on land that’s set aside for conservation or for communities for farming.
“Typically there are few sustainable economic alternatives out in these communities and again, many of these communities suffer from limited access to basic utilities like education and healthcare.
“These factors really lend themselves to a heavy reliance on the environment.
“Communities have no choice but to really exploit their environment for instance, firewood, farming land, clearing that, for example, and that really threatens the biodiversity and conservation.
“We get that and for us, the real measure of success is how we reduce that reliance on that environment.”
The multiplier effect works in employment, where the 1,100 workers employed at OWS’ various camps have families that depend on those incomes. Creating pockets of the employed in many of the remote areas also provides the foundation on which other economic activities can be built up.
“If you look at areas such as Okavango Community Trust, Seronga and others, if you drove through those 20 years ago, you wouldn’t have found a clinic, a post office, a road, telecomms or at funeral parlour.
“There’s a multiplier effect.
“When we hire one employee, up to eight of his family member are benefiting from that employment and some of these areas like OCT, it’s a workforce of more than 150 to 200 people.
“Multiply that into those communities and you’ll soon recognise the impact it has in those areas.
“And yes, this is not extractive in the sense of mining. This is conservation.”
According to its recently released Impact Report 2023, OWS spent P1.3 billion over the past ten years procuring goods and services from local suppliers. Millions were spent over the same period on various community interventions, including education and health, as well as the provision of 350 tonnes of food to the needy during the pandemic.
Each thebe spent, activates more value, Binns says.
“It’s very simple in that we totally appreciate our role in the knock-on effect,” he explains.
“Every Pula that we spend, we know it will get spent four, five other times.
“Say you are buying from a retailer; we know that by buying from them, they are in turn buying from a farmer, the farmer is buying fertiliser and so on.
“We accept that there’s a knock on effect from every Pula we put into the economy.”
In the last ten years, OWS’ local procurement has averaged 85%, with consumables such as fuel, food, the gumpoles and nets used in camps, the alcoholic beverages and others, coming from local suppliers.
A local procurement rate of 85% is remarkable for not only the tourism industry, but many other major industries in the country, which rely largely on regional suppliers for their goods and services.
At OWS, whose award-winning camps attract high-net worth tourists from all over the world, the rate of local procurement has been reached and maintained without compromising on quality.
“We are not getting the second best, but the best.
“We are working with our suppliers all the time on how to get them to the level we need for that very best because we are also running the very best in the world.
“You can only do that if you work with the suppliers on what you need,” Binns says.
Supplier development is key in ensuring OWS’ multiplier effect has the desired impact. At present, Binns says, the outstanding goods and services not being purchased locally include the design of camps which have to be at global-grade level, as well as specialised products in technology such as solar batteries.
The tourism group is working with communities and farmers to ensure that its supply chain is not only strengthened, but also that value flows beyond the actual tourism activities. OWS has purchased a small farm at Shorobe which will be used to grow fresh produce for guests and staff at the camps.
“The Shorobe project is still some way off but the principle is that where we are not able to get produce, we should get involved in helping the market in producing that,” Binns explains.
“We are not going into farming but we want to create a learning environment for farmers to learn the skills to produce sustainably for us.
“When there’s an onion shortage, it does not seem like a big problem, but how do you make a Caesar’s salad and sell it to a multimillionaire tourist, without one?
“Rather than complaining, we believe in ‘how can we do things better and get involved?’”
OWS has also been assisting vulnerable farmers in seven villages, with the aim of increasing food security. According to the Impact Report, the assistance is also designed to reduce human-wildlife conflict. The tourism group has been ploughing, de-stumping and distributing seeds in the seven villages, while also drilling boreholes for five villages.
Binns says OWS is a firm advocate of the Mindset Change campaign and has embraced it in its approach to spreading value.
“The thing is that as a country, we have to change.
“We cannot sit and look at our past success and say we will continue the same way.
“How can we do things better or differently, not just change for the sake of change?
“At Wilderness, we are fully subscribed to that thinking because it allows us to sit and debate issues without fear.
“It’s about how to improve the game.
“We need to be able to have these conversations, the private sector and government.
“Changing also means that we have to learn to trust each other and see that we are in this together; the private sector are also Batswana and government is not the only participant in the economy.
“We want to play our part in moving towards that high income economy and we need these conversations.”