The Desert & Delta Safaris CARES Movement was a remarkable success with over $20,000 raised for co-existence support for local communities and wildlife in Botswana!
By June this year we realised the COVID crisis wasn’t going to be over anytime soon. The Desert & Delta Safaris team decided to get together to discuss how we could come up with a campaign that would not only lift our spirits and keep the dream alive for our future travellers…but raise funds for important work supporting communities in wildlife areas.
And so the CARES Movement was born. Future travellers were invited to purchase open-dated travel vouchers up until the end of 2022 securing a guaranteed 2020 rate usable up until the end of 2022. Desert & Delta pledged to donate 10% of ALL revenue raised from the CARES Movement towards the ‘EleSenses’ research and community support project. An Elephant Repellant Project backed by Elephants Without Borders (EWB) that helps farmers in the Chobe District.
Our aim was to raise $10,000. Just over a month later we realised the CARES Movement was gaining significant traction and we extended the deadline to book a voucher to the end of September!
We are thrilled to announce that we raised well over $20,000!
To every guest who got in touch with us and booked a voucher! We thank you from the bottom of our heart and cannot wait to see you in Botswana.
We’d also like to extend our gratitude to a few of our tour operator partners around the world. Despite the hard times they recognised the opportunity to make a positive impact.
Venter Tours in Germany who have sent so many travellers to Botswana with us over the years purchased a number of vouchers that they committed to selling to future travellers. So if you’re in Germany and planning a safari to Botswana one day… get in touch with them and 10% of your safari with us will be going to support conservation in community areas.
BJ Adventures our friends in New Mexico purchased several vouchers as well! So their details are below if you’re in the USA!
Also massive thanks to Explore Inc in Steamboat, Colorado. Sikeleli Africa, Adventure World Australia & a number of other operators who all got on board to support the project!
This money will go towards the research, support, and collaboration efforts taking place in this community. Experts from the team at EWB consult the farmers, help advise which system will work best for keeping elephants away according to their crop and location. They help install the systems, mentor them and they also help in providing crop crushing and distribution support for the farmers.
EWB has been collaborating with the Chobe enclave farming community, for the last 10 years in developing successful mitigations practices that can produce conflict-free crop fields while enabling coexistence.
With almost 130,000 individuals Botswana is home to the world’s largest elephant population of which 70% of them occur outside National Parks. Here these animals compete with a growing human population for food land and scarce water resources. The long-term survival of elephants will ultimately depend on improved coexistence between elephants and people.
The tourism industry has a pivotal role in that it relies on this incredible wildlife as a product and has the responsibility to support the people living alongside the animals.
Thank you to all those who joined the CARES Movement and to all those who’ve backed this project. We will be sure to share more information and results from the work there in time to come.
