Kenya luxury safari lodge

Our accommodation is part of a 32,000-acre ranch within the Laikipia-Samburu ecosystem, Kenya’s most important wildlife ecosystem outside the National Parks and Reserves. It lies on the northern slopes of Mt Kenya, surrounded by private ranches, small-scale farms and impoverished and overgrazed Maasai pastoralist areas. We hold significant populations of many wildlife species, which are free to move across its boundaries. These include breeding African wild dogs, lions, elephants and patas monkeys. 

Our tourism product includes two facilities - a 16-bed up-market lodge and a 12-bed private house. Tourism exists alongside commercial cattle ranching, and small scale enterprises designed to assist local communities, and clients are encouraged to see the full range of activities on the ranch. Our objectives are to demonstrate that it is possible to conserve wildlife, to act as a local engine of economic growth and to assist with the economic and social development of communities on a commercial basis without depending on donor funding. 

We have recently established a mobile clinic, based in a Land Rover, primarily to assist the neighbouring Maasai. It was originally started in order to introduce the concept of family planning to women and also to provide sex and health education to the children of the area. It has expanded its operations to provide immediate medical support and to vaccinate children in the area in conjunction with the Ministry of Health. HIV AIDS awareness training has also been included as a task of the mobile clinic and we have a fully trained VCT councillor. The clinic visits over ten destinations every two weeks. The nurses give sex and health education lectures in six different primary schools reaching over 1000 children a month.

Since the inception of the mobile clinic in March 2005 we have had 7000 attendances for medical treatment and 2110 for family planning services. 4181 vaccinations have been given, there have been 1004 visits to the antenatal clinic, 12000 children have attended the sex and health lectures in the local schools and 14620 people have been to the lectures on HIV/AIDS.

Tourism in the area is high value and low impact. Therefore there are few negative social or cultural impacts. We have a local employment policy so all the guests are guided by local staff. Clients are encouraged to visit local villages, cultural centres and schools, but since they do so with guides who grew up in these areas, they gain a real understanding of people’s lives and problems. The main economic benefit of tourism to the local community is through employment. The ranch has a policy of employing local people. There are currently over 500 permanent staff and 30 casuals, with an annual wage bill of $500,000.

One of the ancillary enterprises based on the property is a firm called ‘Hide and Sheep’. This purchases sheep and cattle hides from local farmers. The hides are tanned on the property in a tannery staffed by blind people, and are turned into slippers, boots, cushions, rugs etc. by physically disabled people at the workshop. Beaded decorations are added by a local women’s group, and the finished products are sold locally and internationally. This is one of the very few places in the district where it is possible for disabled people to get paid employment. We are working with the local pastoralist communities to increase the value of their livestock, to improve the quality of rangeland, and to develop alternative sources of income.

Senior management were closely involved in the development of a community lodge. Following on from this we raised funding and developed and constructed another similar lodge on a neighbouring Maasai group ranch. This has been very successful in raising the living standards of its people, through employment creation and through profits that go into education and social development. We financed the development of a local cultural centre, which is visited by most guests to the lodge at a cost of $20 per guest. Four dry-land rehabilitation plots have been developed on neighbouring community land as well as a working permaculture plot at one primary school. We have secured funding to develop two more permaculture plots at two other local primary schools.

We support local tree nurseries and sponsor programmes for seed collection in the forest. These are then germinated and supplied to the local nurseries. We started an education programme which supports local children in secondary and tertiary education and funds the improvement of local primary school facilities. We are the largest private financial contributor to the Laikipia Wildlife Forum, which supports community based tourism and other wildlife based projects throughout Laikipia. Since we are a low-volume high-value tourism facility, it has a relatively low environmental impact. It was built almost entirely from materials found on the ranch, such as standing dead cedar trees, rocks, and thatching grass. Game drives are kept to a minimum and guests are encouraged to engage in low-impact activities such as horse-riding, walking and mountain-biking.

80% of the food at the lodge is from the ranch or from the immediate area. We are fortunate to be close to farms that provide vegetables for export to Europe, but no air-miles are expended on the way to the lodge. All soaps, shampoos and body lotions are handmade on the farm using organic essential oils. They are decanted into glass bottles, rather than being put in plastic pots. The fields where the essential oils for the soaps etc. are grown are fertilised from compost pits from the lodge.

Because we are remote from the nearest recycling facility waste glass is used as ballast in building projects. The laundries use biodegradable detergents, and guests are encouraged to keep their linen and towels for the duration of their visits. Guest laundry is done by hand and everything is shade dried. Before the lodge was built, there was constant conflict between the ranching operation and large predators such as lion, leopard and hyaena, which were persecuted because of the large number of cattle and other stock that they killed. Since the development of tourism, predators are actively encouraged. A number of experiments have been carried out in collaboration with scientists studying the predators on stock management, aimed primarily at reducing the losses to predators in enclosures at night. Losses have been reduced to an acceptable level, and predator numbers have greatly increased. There are now resident lions, and the globally endangered African wild dog now breeds on the property.

Being a significant contributor to the Laikipia Wildlife Forum we have assisted with the assistance that they have given the peoples living in the Mukogodo Forest, Eastern Laikipia. This has been through money and advice to set up conservation areas, land-rehabilitation areas, eco-tourism projects, self-help businesses. We use cattle alongside the herds of plains game as a land-management tool, to graze the areas of long grass. This is used instead of the burning of moribund grazing, which can harm small mammals such as tortoises, birds and insects and if the fires get hotter because of change in wind can damage a lot of vegetation. The peoples of the Mukogodo are now getting the support they deserve for having preserved one of the most intact indigenous forests in Kenya. It is demonstrated through an increased quality of grazing and therefore an increase in wildlife numbers.