BOUTIQUE LUXURY SAFARIS
SUNRISE ON A NEW ERA OF TRAVEL
The sun is rising on this new era of travel and responsibility belongs to all of us.
In 2022, the world’s population reached 8 billion people. Over the preceding 40 years, as the global population has grown, our wild places have begun changing and in some cases disappearing entirely. As a photographer working in Africa’s wild spaces, I’ve had a front-row seat to this change. Kenya, which is often a standard for the rest of Africa, lost over 70% of its wildlife population between 1977 and 2016. This is due mostly to land-use change as much of our wild land was developed into agriculture to feed a growing population.
Tourism and wild spaces, especially in East Africa, are inexorably linked. The value of biodiversity is almost entirely determined by tourism. Very few reasonable and viable alternatives for valuing wildlife and wild spaces exist outside of the fickle tourism markets. So when tourism is good, wildlife and land use see stable increases in their overall health because revenues from that industry are pumped into local communities and conservation outfits. But when a major downturn in tourism occurs such as was the result of the Covid-19 pandemic, we expect that communities and wildlife areas which depend on that revenue will be forced to look elsewhere for livelihoods. In many cases, poaching and bushmeat trade is a viable option especially when the perceived value of wildlife declines with the tourism industry.
So tourism plays a critical role in funding many of the conservation efforts, both as a direct by-product of booking an ethical safari, but also because guests often fall in love with the places they visit on safari and maintain long-term connections to those spaces. Many critical conservation outfits are funded entirely by guests who visited their work while on safari.
It is my hope that in traveling with Wildland Collective, you will leave Africa with a sense of ownership and duty to the experiences you’ve been witness to while traveling. Not only will a large chunk of your safari budget end up going toward conservation, but that long after you’ve returned home, you would become an advocate for the land, for the people and communities you met.
In this new era of post-covid travel, we believe that travel should not only consider mitigation of negative impacts such as carbon offsets and ecosystem rehabilitation, but should move to create positive long-term outcomes for the landscapes in which it participates. Jane Goodall said: This land is not something we inherited from our forefathers, but rather it is something we borrow from our children and grandchildren. The responsibility to pass on these places to future generations belongs to all of us and responsible conservation-forward travel is a very good way to do that.
It is important for us to remember that the world is not creating any more wild spaces. So we have a duty to care for the spaces we have now. Once they are gone, they are gone forever and our short-term appetites for progress cannot outweigh our long-term ideals. In this new era of travel, the responsibility for the protection and conservation of biodiversity belongs to all of us and must be at the front of our consideration.
-Bobby Neptune, Photographer, Journalist & Wildland Collective Founder
Tourism. Awareness. Change.
Our goal as an organization is two-fold. First, we want to create a collection of experiences you will fall in love with. Second, our goal is also to leave a net-positive impact on the ecosystems in which we play. As a boutique travel agency, we specialize in personalized safari experiences which are vetted for their conservation outcomes. We work with lodges and partners to ensure conservation is at the forefront of the conversation at all times.
We believe that you protect what you love. And we hope that your experience on safari is the beginning of a life-long romance with the African continent and the beauty she holds. Having children on safari is a great reminder for us that these landscapes are often fragile and that we must do everything in our power to make sure our children and our grandchildren can participate in the same experiences we are today.
Tourism lets us fall in love with the landscapes and gives us an awareness of the difficulties those landscapes face. If we protect what we love, then hopefully the love story which starts on safari extends into a life of advocacy for Africa’s beautiful wild landscapes and the people and wildlife which live within them.
Tourism leads to awareness. Awareness leads to change. Once you are aware, you must act. Edward Abbey put it best: “Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.”
“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.” - Edward Abbey
The Founder’s Story
For the love of wild places.
“Wild places have a way of bringing us to center. Sitting under the big open sky, surrounded by nothing but wilderness is the greatest gift mother earth can give us. It is the genesis of all true perspective.”
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Bobby’s career began working as a photojournalist all over Africa, documenting some of the most difficult places in the world. After nearly a decade working in conflict zones and refugee camps, he looked toward Africa’s wilderness for respite and rebirth. Experiences are meant to be shared and Wildland Collective was founded on the desire to share those healing experiences with others.
