Safari-Style auto bailout

Pretty funny!!!

Nat Geo’s “Virtual Safari”

Looks like National Geographic TV is going to broadcast “live” twice-daily game drives from Kruger National Park:

The programme will be hosted by UK wildlife presenter Michaela Strachan and will be broadcast on National Geographic Wild, as well as online at www.natgeotv.com. Game rangers and wildlife trackers from Singita, along with veterinarians and ecologists, will also share insight into Africa’s conservation issues, as well as specific initiatives taking place in the Kruger National Park.

Here’s the link to the story…

Kenya’s Reality TV Stars

BBC’s Big Cat Diary is back in the Masai Mara of Kenya for another season. They are staying with our friends at Governor’s Camps…

This year, the show will be broadcast live for the first time; and also for the first time, live filming will go on through the night.

“We’re hoping to reveal the nocturnal habits of the big cats as well as the stuff that happens during the day,” says producer Colin Jackson. “As for precisely what will happen… we have no idea, but what we do know is that every year the cats surprise us.”

You can see live streaming video and the latest update from the team at www.bbc.co.uk/bigcat.

Inspiring program protects Gorillas in Rwanda

We were excited to find this article about Edwin Sabuhoro, a 32 year old Rwandan ‘adventurer, naturalist, educator, guide, tracker, ranger and conservationist’ who recently won an international award for launching Iby’IWACU Village, “a community-based ecotourism initiative that was designed to develop incentives for local people to protect gorilla habitats.”

Today, the outcomes of the project are astonishing. Local people own 100% of the project. The cultural village has increased tourism arrivals by 40% and has generated a sustainable income base for the village. Poaching of gorillas has been reduced by 60%.

“Survivor” winner could be Gabon

I’m not much of a “Survivor” fan, but I was excited to see that this season was in Gabon. Here’s an interesting article that talks about how the show is made, its footprint on the environment and the potential boost it could have on eco and adventure travel to Gabon.

The show’s presence in Gabon comes at a critical moment for the country, which just six years ago created a system of national parks to protect its largely untouched landscape. That national beauty is reflected in the tagline for “Survivor: Gabon,” “Earth’s Last Eden.” Now, the Gabonese government — one of Africa’s most rich and stable, thanks to oil and other reserves of natural resources — needs to find ways to make that protected land profitable, introducing ecotourism in place of logging.

Looks like Gabon could be a big winner. Read the whole article here.