Dispatches from the Field & Project Summaries
Mihingo Lodge – Uganda, Part III: Kids acting out in the name of conservation
March 19, 2008
That afternoon, we joined resident manager Kate Ward in a trip into the village to observe an environmental conservation class that she teaches at the primary school.
A volunteer teacher who uses Honey Fund dollars for supplies, Kate talks with the children about Lake Mburo National Park and the value of its animal population to the community as a natural resource for education/beauty for the community as well as the reason that tourist dollars come into their village to fund key projects including education.
What I found most striking is how very little these kids knew of the animals in their midst yet how quickly they started making the connection. Kate used a whole series of teaching techniques including story telling, games, songs and acting… it was hard to not join in:
What makes an eland special? Big horns? Yes! Big horns! Everyone be an eland and show me your big horns!
The children’s conservation class was followed by the adult literacy program which Kate also teaches. We were advised that adults were shy about our observing their class, so we didn’t linger, but Kate let us know that she was pleased to see class attendance increase. The weekly class usually starts with a handful of adults, but over the course of a session, up to 40 adults from the village assemble to listen in. Many of the adults in the village cannot read or write, so filling out basic school forms for their children an overwhelming, humiliating task. Kate has seen the excitement and pride in the faces of the adults in her class as they learn to spell their own children’s names.
With its mindful participation and support of environmental, conservation, education and community outreach, the committed owners and staff of Mihingo Lodge prove that a luxury safari destination can also be an exemplary environmental steward and community advocate.
Mihingo Lodge – Uganda, Part II: Take care of your neighbors, scavengers though they may be
March 19, 2008
I probably should have let them know that I can be very hard to wake up.
I came to at 5:45 AM with the voice of hotel proprietor Ralph at my door courteously PLEADING for me to rise so that our group could get underway for hyena tracking. This curious activity requires an early roll call – hyenas are easiest to locate during the pre-dawn return to their dens after an evening’s hunt.
At Lake Mburo National Park headquarters, we meet our hyena tracking guide, friendly park ranger Andrew, and we head off toward the hyena dens directly.
A few things to know – spotted hyenas subcontract their den construction. Anteaters do the dirty work, burrowing into the ground in search of insects – when the bug well runs dry, anteaters move on, hyenas take up residence.
We’d walked perhaps 15 minutes before meeting up with the first silhouette in the sepia of pre dawn. Andrew made calls that mimicked a hyena kill announcement, communication back to the pack that it’s mealtime. It clearly piqued their interest – more trotted into view.
I had figured, like so many wild creatures, that they’d run from a stinky pack of coffee addled humans with noisy cameras, and while they did seem wary, I wouldn’t call them afraid. Flash photography didn’t faze them and some even seemed curious about us, sniffing the air and taking steps toward us…. which reads as lurking calculation.
The beasts have a brazen edginess and a misunderstood bad boy charm – magnetic, but you somehow know to not turn your back.
Amidst the tracking, Mihingo Lodge owner Ralph explained a predator/scavenger conservation program that he’s very keen on launching in the nearby communities. Seems that local farmers blame the park’s relatively small leopard population on a number of livestock kills and, in response, farmers poison the remaining carcasses in hopes of killing the predator that perpetrated the act. Leopards are at risk, but more often than not, it’s the scavengers who are poisoned – hyenas + vultures who play an integral part of the park’s ecosystem.
Ralph’s leopard and hyena project proposal is to pay farmers for livestock lost to verified predator kills and eliminate the practice of poisoning that sabotages the scavenger population. Farmers would need to have suspected predator kills inspected + verified in the first 24 hrs after the incident. If it’s determined that the kill fits the profile of a leopard attack, the farmer would be paid for the livestock loss on the spot and the carcass would be removed in whole immediately, lessening the farmer’s drive for retribution and eliminating the vehicle for poisoning. It seems to be a well thought out solution that doesn’t punish the farmer or the wildlife… now just the matter of getting funding and implementation before the predator and scavenger population is poisoned out of existence…
Mihingo Lodge – Uganda, Part I: High style, low impact – everybody wins
March 19, 2008
From Nile Safari Lodge, we caught a lift back into Kampala for the night. We were met the next morning by Mihingo Lodge proprietor, Ralph Schenk, who spirited us westward toward the lodge and Lake Mburo National Park.
Conversation in the car was lively and Ralph, who is also co-owner of Banana Boat craft stores with his partner Suni, is an incredible source of information and opinions about many issues challenging Africa. His upbringing was a mix of influences of Africa, where he was born, and Europe, where his parents were raised and he was educated. At age 19, Ralph took an epic road trip over the whole of Africa, an odyssey that galvanized his passion for the continent. He focused his collegiate + graduate studies along with volunteer endeavors on economics, agriculture, conservation and alternative energy, mindful of what education would best serve the environment, community as well as his entrepreneurial interests in Africa.
We uneventfully crossed from the north to the south side of the equator (we opted to spare Ralph our tourist glee as he’d made the journey countless times). In the town of Lyantonde, we turned onto a dirt road toward Nshara Gate into Lake Mburo National Park and our hotel shuttle turned into a game drive as zebra, African buffalo and warthogs seemed to spring up from the ether across the park’s grassland.
Situated on a hilltop adjacent to Lake Mburo National Park, Mihingo Lodge’s commanding views of the park and nearby lakes are a feast to the eyes. Ralph and Suni came up with an initial design that embraced high end safari lodge style and services with environmentally smart design. They created lodge facilities and bungalows that optimize the site’s natural attributes for both aesthetic beauty and ease of harnessing and harvesting solar power and rainwater to fuel lodge operations.
Guest quarters have been crafted with the seemingly improbable combination of spectacular vistas and supreme privacy. In décor, a tasteful minimalism prevails, yielding to the visual draw of the natural surroundings. Bedrooms and bathrooms are almost imperceptibly screened, providing unprecedented views of everything except the neighbors (as lovely as they might be).
Mihingo Lodge established a program, initially fueled by retail sales of local honey, to serve the community just outside the park gates. The Honey Fund benefits the Akashenshero area, providing an educational resource fund for the Rurambira primary school, offering volunteer-run environmental education and adult literacy programs. The fund has recently assisted in tending to major medical issues that have faced community residents including reconstructive surgery to child’s cleft palate and an operation to repair a local girl’s bowed leg.
The afternoon of our arrival, Ralph took us on a trip to nearby Kazumi Lookout for a visual tour and history of the surrounding area and that evening, we convened in the lodge’s open air dining room overlooking a watering hole in Lake Mburo National Park. With impala and eland as our inspiration, we too sought refreshment. Over bottles of Nile Special, the boys and I determined that we’d spend the following morning tracking hyenas in the park and spend the afternoon checking out Honey Fund projects at the local primary school – opportunities to see how all the lodge’s neighbors are faring.
Nile Safari Lodge – Uganda: Take me to the river
March 19, 2008
We loaded up Rhino Fund Uganda’s seasoned Land Cruiser, strapped our gear to the roof rack + headed to Nile Safari Lodge. We relished a few stretches of tarmac, though our path was primarily hard-packed dirt as we passed through small towns and herds of massive-horned Ugandan cattle on our drive toward Masindi.
Our route traversed a portion of Murchison National Park and, for the first several kilometers, scores of baboons filled the roads, chastening our noisy advance by loping into the woods, offering only their bright red primate butts as they disappeared into thick foliage of the park.
Approaching the lodge, we caught glimpses of Lake Albert before turning north toward the Victoria Nile. A final dusty lumber brought us to reception at the Nile Safari Lodge where we were met by friendly faces bearing cool white towels with a hint of eucalyptus. The volume of dirt peeled from arms and faces?
Oh my.
Sorry about your towels…
A short walk from reception leads to a magnetic location just out front of the dining room: a vista across The River Nile into Murchison National Park from a comfortably appointed platform shaded by a massive cluster fig tree teeming with vervet monkeys – a nice spot for a cool drink, if I do say so myself.
GeoLodges, the parent company of Nile Safari Lodge, utilizes local materials to build their properties whenever possible, so the timber, stones for masonry, thatching materials and skilled labor are all sourced from the community. Nile Safari Lodge collects solar power for electricity; other lodges in the GeoLodge family leverage water catchment systems and use even more substantial alternative energy programs on more recently built properties.
GeoLodges also has a community outreach program called Earthworks that assists local residents with vocational training including a project that assists women from Mubaku and other villages adjacent to Nile Safari Lodge in earning an income that allows them to work from their homes, allowing them to care for their children and tend household responsibilities while earning an outside income. Bead for Life is an environment/community friendly program that sources used magazines as materials that local women craft into colorful beads. These beads are strung into jewelry and sold at retail outlets (including the lodge). Profits benefit the bead makers and help sustain the Earthworks program supporting further community development.
Earthworks also assists a local farm collective that promotes the sale of village produce to the greater community and the Nile Safari Lodge where the menus are primarily locally sourced. The results are multifold – money for supplies go back into the community while minimizing fossil fuels expended in bringing outside supplies to the lodge property.
We took a boat tour of the fabled Nile the following morning. A light mist rose off the river and the lodge’s low profile bungalows blended cohesively into the papyrus-addled riparian landscape. The portion of the Nile adjacent to Murchison National Park is wildlife rich: hippopotamus, kingfisher, crocodiles, water buck appeared in profusion and we counted ourselves fortunate to linger a few minutes in the presence of the endangered, elusive shoe bill stork.
Upon our return, I bee-lined to the cool open air of my bungalow’s private outdoor shower, retiring to the porch with a cup of coffee as an African elephant trolled the marshes of Murchison Park with a few white-feathered hitchhikers perched atop its back.
Both the birds and I had found fine landing spots, indeed.
Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary – Uganda (Rhino Fund Uganda): Becoming okay with the AK…47, that is
March 7, 2008
We headed north on the Kampala/Gulu road toward the Ziwa Ranch Rhino Sanctuary.
The day was moving to dusk and as we drove toward park headquarters. The day patrol rangers bike toward us as they close their shifts. Charged with protecting the rhinos from poachers, rangers must have equal footing in confrontations – explaining the AK-47s slung over their shoulders as they slowly pedaled toward the main gate – they smile and wave as we motor past.
Head ranger Godfried gave us a tour of the headquarters and a quick history of the property. Formerly a cattle ranch, a local rancher donated 35 square kilometers to the Rhino Fund Uganda to establish the sanctuary. A sizeable gift from the European Union allowed them to install a solar-powered electric fence around the perimeter of the site and 4 white rhinos from Kenya were then brought to the property. More recently, Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida donated an additional pair of white rhinos.
That evening, we met Rhino Fund Uganda executive director Heidi Cragg – a plucky, sun burnished South African woman with a passion for wildlife conservation.
Her projects include a rhinoceros breeding project (their first calf is due in weeks), community education + outreach programs along with sourcing the local community for rangers and sanctuary support staff.
In Africa, rhinos are hunted by poachers for the exceptional price they can get for their horns, valued for their perceived medicinal power. Remarkably, rhino horn is actually made of hair attached to the skin of the rhino, not the bone, so it can be harvested without killing the rhino. Bullets, however, are cheaper than rhinoceros tranquilizers. Rhino advocates had taken to the practice of removing the horn before it was discovered that poachers would kill hornless rhinos to spite conservationists. The message is simple – you deprive me of my bounty, I’ll kill the animal anyway. Bush meat poachers ply the edges of the electric fence, running snares underneath onto the sanctuary property to capture bushbuck, diker and wild pig. Farmers quietly maneuver their cattle onto the property’s edge to graze illegally – rangers “arrest” cows on a regular basis and she’s discovered that recent interloping herds have been the property of local public officials making enforcement a frustrating affair, to say the least.
Supported solely by donation, the Rhino Fund’s budget is unpredictable at best. A recent spate of dried up coffers forced Heidi to give up 24 hour ranger patrols, leaving the rhinos unprotected from poachers during the evenings, incurring a series of dread-filled, sleepless nights before the Uganda Wildlife Authority donated 4 rangers so Rhino Fund could resume 24 hour patrols.
Heidi shared her plans to make the sanctuary less reliant on donor funding through ecotourism, attracting more visitors by expanding and improving guest facilities with the construction of a restaurant, bar and swimming pool along with more overnight accommodations. She’s working to increase her white rhino count, introducing black rhinos along with broad grazing, non-cattle mammals, such as zebra, to manage grassland overgrowth and offer more variety in wildlife viewing.
Room and board are available to visitors and volunteers and the predominantly solar powered facilities offered presently are clean and simple – with the menagerie of wildlife, visitors spend of their waking hours viewing rhinos, hippos, bushbuck, vervit monkeys and marveling at the prolific birdlife on the property.
A tireless champion of the sanctuary, natural resource and wildlife conservation, Heidi sees daily challenges, both planned + unexpected (flat tires and bush fires, anyone?), as a shot of adrenaline, the stuff that makes life interesting, announcing, unprompted, “I just love it here”.
Paper Craft – Uganda: Some call it rubbish; we call it renewal
March 6, 2008
Harriet turns the car from the paved main road onto hard-packed dirt. Driving toward the workshop, Harriet waves at a man carrying an empty canvas bag that smiles and nods back at her. “That man, he supplies us with the banana leaves we use for the paper.”
Paper Craft is an employee-owned recycled + natural papermaking business that promotes self-sufficiency for its employees, many of whom are women who are given training and employment in an environmentally gentle trade.
A simple brick structure with a corrugated roof built on a slope. Harriet walks us through the paper-making process – they use elephant grass, banana + pineapple fibers – cleverly repurposing offal from other trades that would have otherwise wound up in the landfill. The materials make for paper with a hearty, textured, organic quality. They source shredded ledger and business paper from a local bank to make their recycled paper and these have a smoother, finished look.
Once dried, the paper is turned into a number of finished products that the shop employees create – picture frames, stationary, decorative boxes, tags, photo albums. These products are then sold to retail outlets including Banana Boat African Craft stores.
Back in Kampala, we visited a Banana Boat African Craft store and met Ralph and Suni (pronounced “shoe-knee”), owners of the Kampala-based retail operation. This progressively-minded, entrepreneurial couple provide many services to their employees + suppliers beyond the traditional exchange of goods and services. Unlike many other craft retailers, they pay their suppliers in cash, not consignment.
Banana Boat stores promote sustainable + renewable materials and are particularly supportive of businesses such as Paper Craft who actively train and educate community members toward self sufficiency. Banana Boat, in fact, provided a microloan to the employees at Paper Craft so that they could buy their business. Bank-funded loans can charge small businesses 25-40% interest, while the funds from Banana Boat to Papercraft are no interest loans that Ralph and Suni offer to employees and suppliers with the understanding that they are simply paid back in agreed installments every month.
A compliment to their successful retail business, Ralph and Suni invest in the potential in people. The loans they’ve offered through Banana Boat catalyze profound changes in the local community – employees can buy a business, fueling their self sufficiency and confidence without sacrificing the environment or accepting undue financial risks. In turn, Paper Craft employee/owners provide their village with positive examples of previously untrained community members who have transformed into contributors to commerce through craft.
Arrival in Africa
March 5, 2008
Heathrow to Nairobi….as our second nighttime flight came to a close, I repeated the word “Africa” quietly. Does one ever believe they are REALLY going to Africa until they actually set foot on the soil? I certainly hadn’t… it had always seemed an impossibly distant exotic place, legendarily filled with the beautiful and dangerous where many of recent history’s most catastrophic episodes played out in crises of poverty, disease and human conflict.
But I considered again our plan for this visit – to document innovative sustainable and green projects in developing countries, elevating agents of change + sharing their stories of success + challenges, with the end of providing both inspiration from and support to their causes. What an amazing opportunity…to see these programs in action and to meet the people who are making them work, in many cases despite prevailing environmental and cultural conditions.
Out the window, a lightning storm unleashed like a firefight in the clouds skirting the flanks of Mt Kilimanjaro, followed by an African sunrise that filled the dim cabin with golden hued spotlights, gently shifting as the pilot adjusted our tack for the approach to Nairobi airport.
After a final puddle jump from Kenya to Uganda, our airport relay was complete. We were met at Entebbe Airport outside Kampala, Uganda by the effusive, well-spoken Greg Cummings, executive director of The Gorilla Organization, a wild-haired African-raised Canadian, keenly focused on African environmental and wildlife conservation partnered with community development. He was accompanied by good-humored Rwandan-born Patrice Basha, Gorilla Safari guide who nimbly motored us past packed minibuses, bikes and motor scooters into Kampala.
The Green Living Project Team – pleased to meet you
March 4, 2008
Rob Holmes: Founder, Green Living Project
A renaissance man in convertible pants, Rob is a whip-smart but unassuming straight-shooter. Author and executor of Trails.com’s marketing and business strategies, Rob has also aided leading conservation nonprofit organizations in strategic planning, marketing, sales and business development. In addition, Mr. Holmes is a Hell of a photojournalist + lecturer whose work has focused on social, environmental and sustainability projects in his travels to over 50 countries.
John Canning: Executive Producer
The OTHER renaissance man in convertible pants, John is precocious combination of right brain/ left brain who has loads of practical smarts, a fine dosing of creative tempered with seemingly indefatigable good humor. John has traveled extensively and his career has spanned media production, delivery and platforms for over 20 years with Scientific Atlanta, Microsoft, Richard Bangs Adventures,Yahoo! Studios and Yahoo! News. John now runs MediaSherpa Consulting and Production.
Molly Little: Journalist
I will not be able to write about myself in 3rd person – forgive me boys. After many years in the active travel industry, I shifted to a career in sporting goods, one role segueing tidily into the next (work with gear, rely on gear, love gear, work with gear, repeat ad infinitum) through which I’ve been able to juggle scribbling (aka writing), sport and travel. Last month, Rob contacted me and asked if I’d like to join the Green Living Project as a journalist on what sounded like the adventure and education of a lifetime. I’d never been to Africa. The combination of agenda, intent and company of seasoned Africa travelers were too damn compelling to pass up.
Rob and John will be posting blogs from their perspectives as well, so keep your eyes peeled to the site for updates and additional commentary coming soon.