Wilderness Botswana, one of the major eco –tourism operators within some of Botswana most sought after pristine eco-systems is guided by three pillars: which are to educate, empower and protect under which the ethos on environment sustainability are premised.
On a recent impact media tour to two of Wilderness’ camps of Vumbura Plains and Duma Tau in Linyanti, the company’s Chief of Staff Dawson Ramsden demonstrated the importance of keeping the environment its pristine state.
“We have come a far as a company in the conservation and protection of the wilderness areas that we operate in. We have been fortunate to operate in some of the most beautiful wildlife areas that we have been previledged to have played a part in protecting,” Ramsden stated.
In protecting these area, Wilderness has partnered with various stakeholders, among them communities and NGO’s whose work towards environmental protection has been remarkable. The Vumbura Plains operations, are some of camps where communities have become a major partner in all that the company does aligned to the three pillars.
Some of the sustainability measures the operations have maintained to date, is to cut off the use of plastic water bottles completely, to the use of recycled bottles – a major step in reducing its carbon footprint.
Also most camps have transitioned from fossil fuel powered energy to green energy through the harnessing of the abundance of the sun, leading to the reduction of carbon footprint to almost zero in these areas. These operations run on solar energy, with back – up generators which only kicks in when the sun is obscured due to cloud cover.
The Vumbura plains operations, North and South Camps, including the staff village and the workshops are operated by two separate power plants to meet the power demands of their daily usage.
According to Ramsden, this goes a long way in ensuring that sustainability is at the core of their operations ‘practices.
“The three pillars are the epitome and they encompass how we operate. The solar plants have drastically reduced the carbon foot print in these eco sensitive areas we operate,” Ramsden highlighted.
Besides the use of sola energy in place of fossil fuels to generate power, Wilderness, as a deliberate move to ensure sustainability, has adhered to the requirements to have sewerage treatment plant.
“We have developed from grey water going underground, with treatment of the same in underground septic tanks to surface tanks. All the grey water from the camps and staff village is transferred into the over ground tanks and treated with natural bacteria from the environment,” Ramsden explained.
After the due process of treatment, the water is then released into the environment through very fine jets from sprinklers into the atmosphere through evapotranspiration.
All solid waste from the Camps, is also handle with due care to ensure the environment does not in any way get clogged by any foreign objects that would threaten its very existence.
Non bio-degradable waste material from the camp operations is treated with due cate – with a cage specifically designed for storage of sorted and packed waste. The cage ensures that wild animals like baboons do not spread the waste throughout the concession.
Every month trucks that bring into camp bulk dry goods, and on their way back they load packaged and separated waste bags to Maun to the landfill,” he revealed.
The camps conduct a concession run every seven days to clean up any waste material that may have been taken from the site by wildlife animals to ensure the whole area is free of waste.
