August
6
2009
By Dan Achber
The words 'eco', 'green' and 'friendly' get bandied about with reckless abandon these days. Many safari camps and lodges pay lip service to the concept of being green, but when you get right down to it a notice asking you to conserve water doesn’t really cut it.
Zarafa Camp, in the Selinda Reserve of Northern Botswana, is the first camp I've come across that both talks the talk and walks the walk. Not only does its bona-fide eco status check out, but the owners have somehow managed to avoid compromising on luxury and comfort.
The camp is small and intimate, and largely constructed of local wood and canvas. There are four guest tents, but to call them tents is to stretch the definition to a ridiculous degree. Instead, let's call them lavish suites with canvas roofs. Each suite has a massive brass bath tub, an indoor and outdoor shower, plunge pool, lounge area and a huge (and I do mean huge) bed. The icing on the cake is the gas fireplace. I would never have thought it could work in a tent, but on a cold winter night in the bush I fired it up, and I was a believer within minutes.
There's a lot of green stuff to see:
• All the decking in both the main area and the tents is made from recycled railway sleepers.
• The furniture in the rooms and the main areas is made of wood harvested from the sea after the South East Asian Tsunami of 2004. If you look closely at many of the pieces you can see old nail holes that make you wonder what the item used to be.
• Rather than using bottled water and filling landfills, drinking water is pulled from deep underground and goes through a multi stage filtration and cleaning process. Each guest recieves a metal water bottle during their stay. Those who ask for plastic bottles are simply made to feel bad (and rightly so).
…And some you can’t:
• A huge solar farm powers the camp; everything from hairdryers to lighting runs on electricity from this amazing system. In many camps the main consumers of fuel are the generators, with some camps consuming upwards of several hundred litres a day. At Zarafa, the generators (essential for backup) usually run for just a few hours each month, consuming a fraction of the fuel used by most camps.
• Solar water heaters preheat the hot water for the tents before feeding it into gas water heaters. This means that the amount of gas required is greatly reduced.
• Rather than pumping waste water from the kitchen and the guests suites into soak aways or septic tanks, all waste water feeds into a three stage, organic enzyme-powered sewage treatment plant. Sewage goes in one end, and out the other comes water clean enough to drink. It is then pumped into nearby waterholes to attract the animals to the camp during the dry season.
The reality of wildlife conservation in Africa is that people need to see the animals. In turn, the visitors need places to stay, which inevitably leave some mark on the environment. Zarafa, however, has set the standard high for minimizing that mark, and at the same time manages to be among the very top safari camps in Africa. And though I mention this last, it is in no way an afterthought; the service, food and staff are absolutely outstanding as well. Now that is a win-win sort of accommodation.
www.selindareserve.com
www.wilderness-safaris.com