Chad tour, Discover Zakouma

Planet

This tour is wildlife focused, visiting the little known Zakouma National Park in southern Chad. This park offers a true wilderness experience, and because of the low visitor numbers we ensure all travellers are briefed appropriately on the correct behaviour to ensure we don't have any negative impacts, both environmentally and socially on the park or the animals. Furthermore by visiting Zakouma, clients are educated in the care and conservation of these animals and we contribute to crucial conservation and research projects designed to ensure the long term wellbeing of the wildlife that lives here.

This tour travels through some very remote and often pristine environments, and outside of N'Djamena some nights are spent camping and the other nights in small lodges. We make a point of ensuring that we do not leave any permanent traces of our stay behind, making sure that we take all litter with us. The desert is a fragile environment and we take great pains to ensure that we do not disturb it.

We work with our local suppliers to highlight best practice in terms of environmental issues, an important effort in a country where the environment is often taken for granted and green thinking is only just emerging. This also includes working with suppliers to reduce water usage – particularly significant in Chad where the scant water that exists is incredibly precious for local people.

Our groups average only six clients, and many tours operate on a private basis with just two travellers. This has much less impact when travelling through rural areas, reducing our environmental and social affects. Finally to emphasise our commitment to Responsible Tourism all clients will receive our Travellers Code of Conduct with their travel documents.

People

This trip spends time visiting some of the most remote communities on our planet and we place a great emphasis on treading sensitively. We visit several small villages on the way back to N'djamena including the village of Mongo. Although tourists are welcomed into the villages, we always ensure that our presence is welcome rather than simply descending en masse and overwhelming the local people, of which a lot haven't seen western travellers before. In exchange for allowing us an insight into their lives we bring gifts of items that are hard to come by for semi-nomadic people, such as soap and tea, which are gratefully received by the women of the families. We feel that it is important not to intrude upon the lives of these people and so will only stop at settlements that we know are happy to receive visitors.

Where possible we buy supplies along the way, and although our groups are small this can make a significant input into the local economy of villages which otherwise have little opportunity to trade.

We believe tourism is a double edged sword that needs to be wielded very carefully. Our philosophy is to have limited departures - usually between one and three a year - for each of our itineraries. By limiting our presence in areas where local culture can be quite fragile, we hope to avoid as much as possible the phenomenon whereby an area changes in character due to repeated and prolonged exposure to tourism. We want to visit an area as friends, not intruders, and to ensure that what we will see will also be there for others to enjoy for many years to come.