What: Four tiny ecolodges run by Volcanoes Safaris.
Where: Bordering parks in Uganda and Rwanda.
Because: The lodges do as much to support the local community as they do to protect wildlife.
Trekking to watch mountain gorillas, one of the world’s most-endangered species, in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, is no easy feat. The hike through dense jungle can take hours. Then, suddenly, you hear the sound of a gorilla beating its chest. Silverbacks come tumbling into view, playing, eating, and going about their daily life, barely noticing visitors. Back at Bwindi Lodge, you can relax knowing that you are helping not only to protect the gorillas but also to improve local life: $100 from every Volcanoes safari is donated to fund community work. “Providing Western standards of comfort has to be balanced with the challenges that local people face in obtaining food and clean water,” says Praveen Moman, co-founder of Volcanoes.
Anti-poaching work in Uganda's Bwindi park has boosted the gorilla population from 302 to 400 in five years.
Near Kyambura Gorge Lodge, the company’s philanthropic trust created a cooperative that gives women the op- portunity to harvest coffee on the trust’s property. The trust is also helping a community of 80 Batwa (Pygmies) near Uganda’s Mount Gahinga Lodge to preserve their cultural heritage: Removed from their land when a national forest was created in 1993, the Batwa suffer from extreme poverty and health issues (see the winner for Health Initiatives, Abercrombie & Kent, right). The trust helped the Batwa establish a living museum of traditional huts, where locals demonstrate songs and danc- es—helping them to benefit from tourism.
As for the animals, Kyambura Gorge Lodge’s land provides a buffer between humans and threatened chimpanzees. Volcanoes is testing a program to deter elephants from roaming into farmland by erecting “fences” of bees that chase away the animals (elephants are afraid of bees, which sting around their eyes and up their trunks) and provide income for the beekeepers. At Bwindi Lodge, a habitat rehab project has been so successful that a gorilla family visits to feed and even sleep there overnight. The gorillas seem to be paying atten- tion to human activities after all.
Photo: Courtesy of The Volcanoes Collection