Wilderness Safaris Celebrates 35 Years of Travelling with Purpose
Staff Writer | Monday July 23, 2018 12:59
When Wilderness Safaris registered as a company in 1983, it was the first safari outfitter at the time to realise the need for its financial benefits to flow back to the country and its people, ultimately ensuring the sustainable protection of Botswana’s diverse wilderness.
According to Wilderness CEO, Keith Vincent, even though this approach forms the cornerstone of ecotourism all over the world today, it was a groundbreaking philosophy in the early 1980s that set Wilderness Safaris apart, and set its course for the next three-and-a-half decades.
“For the last 35 years – even when we started out in Botswana in 1983 with just one old Land Rover – there has always been one overriding purpose to our ecotourism activities: to conserve and restore Africa’s wilderness and wildlife by creating life-changing journeys and inspiring positive action”, said Vincent.
Currently Wilderness Safaris owns and operates more than 40 camps and safaris in some of Africa’s best wildlife and wilderness areas across seven countries: Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Its reputation and operating experience has enabled the company to successfully tender for prime leases in key wildlife areas, offering guests an unrivalled suite of camps and concessions in Africa, and, in turn, contributing materially to their ongoing conservation.
The company traverses nearly three million hectares of over six million acres of prime wildlife and wilderness areas, covering parts of seven of Africa’s 11 biomes.
The CEO said at the same time, Wilderness shares the benefits of ecotourism with local communities, partnering with them to ensure the future protection of Africa’s spectacular wildlife heritage. In addition to pursuing numerous goals through its non-profit partners, Children in the Wilderness and the Wilderness Wildlife Trust, Vincent explained that Wilderness firmly believes that its single most important achievement to date is to have built a sustainable business model that does not compromise environmental principles and which provides jobs, training, skills, careers, adjusted horizons, hope and a realistic alternative to less sustainable development.
“After 35 years in business it is sometimes hard to remember why you started out and what you originally hoped to achieve. However, at Wilderness Safaris, our raison d’être is today even more firmly defined, entrenched and embraced than ever before.
We know why we exist and we know what we are trying to achieve,” he said.
Further Vincent noted that they are dedicated to conserving and restoring Africa’s wilderness adding that their model is responsible and sustainable, changes people’s perspectives on the planet, and inspires those exposed to it to effect positive change in their own lives and own spheres of influence.
“Our journeys truly do change lives, not only those of our staff and community partners, but also our guests and the thousands of people we reach every year.
By ensuring that our guests travel with purpose, we hope to continue building sustainable conservation economies in Africa and make the biggest positive difference to its wildlife and people, both now and into the future.”