This is the first ever newsletter from African Environments ... # 001 !!
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We thought we would wait until things quietened down after New Year before sending it. Hopefully you find it interesting, we are not sure how often we will get it out to you ...we will see what the response is! But please feel free to get back to us with comments – good or bad! – and let us know things that would help YOU to be informed about. All the best from the AE Team

Slow times

These are slow times for Tanzanian Tourism, and indeed for tourism worldwide, as people around the world tighten their belts. For those of you who know Tanzania, a short story to illustrate how slow things are getting ..... we are outfitting a large film crew at the moment who are travelling though Tanzania. As is the way with film crews they continually changed their plans (!) and decided the week before Christmas that they would like 14 rooms on two consecutive nights in Seronera Wildlife Lodge in Mid January. For the past 10 years or so (9/11 aside) our booking request would have been met with raucous laughter by the HOLOTA booking staff as they struggled to tell us these dates had been sold out for 18 months! However in this case they didn’t even need to consult their charts ...... just immediately told us they had space! as I said slow times for Tanzanian Tourism.

The social impact is beginning to tell as well with many companies laying off staff and slimming down their operations ...but it stretches further than this, many local businesses are feeling the pinch from the car spares shops to the little man who sells carrots in the market. One of Arusha’s other big businesses is Gemstone mining – Tanzanite in particular – but the bottom has dropped out of this market as well ..... and with the delay in the rains the farmers are not happy either!

Doom and gloom all around but happily for us African Environments is bucking the trend! This season we have fewer people travelling but are turning over more ...this comes from longer stays in Tanzania and higher ticket climbs and safaris. We have continued to invest heavily in our infrastructure (more of our new camp later) and most importantly our staff.

The low season in November / December was short this year following a couple of late October climbs and safaris but we packed an awful lot of training in. A couple of our leaders – Msafari and Issack went on training courses last year to become qualified Red Cross First Aid Instructors and ran their first course for our Mountain Camp Crew. To become ‘camp crew’ on the mountain is for many their first step on the leadership ladder and giving them some initial first aid training is a great way to keep them interested and motivated. We also ran a wide variety of other courses from extended English through baking to organic gardening! (no we are not planning on ploughing up the Serengeti! – we grow some vegetables and things like lemon grass for tea here at the Arusha Base and wanted to go completely organic with it) As ever we are in awe of the quality and commitment of all our staff.

The BIG news from African Environments is that our much vaunted new luxury camp at Ngorongoro is in Place!!!! The MYSIGIO CAMP was ready for it’s first guests in mid December – this for us was the culmination of 6 months work to find the right tent maker who was willing to work with us on a new design, consulting with the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority to ‘rearrange’ the site to offer truly outstanding views to the South and West across the vast lake Eyasi. The camp boasts nine huge tents which can be arranged as singles, twins or doubles. Each has an ensuite shower and toilet with twin hand basins. We sited the tents with great care and have cut pathways behind the tents so as to offer a fantastic degree of privacy on the tent verandas. The camp also has a stylish mess and a separate lounge tent making it the perfect spot to break a longer safari . There can’t be many things nicer than relaxing in the cool highland air and taking in the stunning views across the vast Serengeti.

As camp was being built my family and I spent some time there helping out and were amazed with how much wildlife there was around – aside from the great birds we were lucky enough to have a herd of zebra close to camp and several endlessly curious giraffe mooching around!

With help from a client from the USA we are constructing a library for the Primary School near the camp. This was the inspiration of Onesmo one of our more experienced trip leaders. He recalled how as a child growing up in a remote Massai village someone had built a library at his school and it fired his imagination and made him work hard to get to where he is today. We will be looking for books to stock the library so are asking anyone coming on a trip with us to have a look through their bookshelves and bring along a couple of books to donate – it can be anything from children’s stories to an atlas.

Walking Safaris

We have run a number of Serengeti Walking Safaris over the last couple of months. There were a few unseasonal showers before Christmas which provided a tremendous ‘green flush’ to draw in the game – all the groups had amazing experiences and once again commented on the extraordinary solitude the area offers. Several of the groups were families with younger children and they proved once again that it’s a great area for kids and can prove a truly bonding experience. We are planning to explore some of the other wilderness areas of the Serengeti this low season so as to be able to offer a wider variety of habitats at different times of year. We are in the process of editing a brand new walking safari video to show more of this special place .... we will let you know when it’s ready!

Kili News!

Kilimanjaro has seen a slowdown in tourism like everywhere else but once again we at African Environments have kept our numbers up ..... as a result the wilderness route on Kili is even quieter than ever, the leaders are saying it’s like going back 15 years – with some groups not seeing another soul until the descent! The realigned ascent up the Western Breach followed by a camp in the Crater continues to be our most popular climb – and in our opinion the absolute best way to summit this magnificent mountain. We continue to offer our high quality climbs, that we have branded our Premier Climb, but have also branched out to offer a more basic product.

The aim is to provide our same high standards of leadership and safety but without the same degree of comfort. We are currently only operating this on the Machame Route and are calling it our Classic Climb. This is targeted at the more price conscious and roughy toughy climber who is still passionate about having an ethical climb with great leadership and an obsessive attention to detail.
African Environments continues to work closely with the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project and one of the directors of African Environents, Wesley Krause, is now on their parent board in the USA. There continue to be a significant number of companies who exploit and underpay porters. We a proud to be at the forefront of the drive for the ethical treatment of porters.

Filming Update

It’s been a hectic time on the film outfitting front as well! – perhaps the most memorable was outfitting the BBC making an 8 part comedy series written by Tira Shubert (left) set in Arusha ..... this was a first for us, outfitting a drama/comedy as opposed to wildlife filming, and it was a really steep learning curve! We provided everything from accountants to production co-ordinators to carpenters and from lorries to stunt cars! A cast and crew of about 70 came out from the UK for the six weeks of the shoot, they worked and partied hard for the entire time ..... after the crew flew home, all of us involved slept for a week!
Another unusual project has been outfitting a film crew who are flying a hot air balloon on a journey from the Indian Ocean to Namibia – African Environments have provided much of the advice and logistical support for this adventure. There has of course been a number of pure wildlife films as well – crews from Austria, the UK and the USA have spread out across Tanzania to record the amazing wildlife .... and African Environments have been there making it happen with permits, camps, specialist camera vehicles and logistical support.
Following a training course late last year our office veggie patch is now completely organic! Ijumaa our gardener grows lettuce, rocket and other greens for the camps and fresh lemon grass as a refreshing non caffeine drink for the mountain climbers.
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