Who Gets to Decide? Rethinking Conservation Through Community Governance
This article is based on a conversation I had in July 2026 with Senior Programmes Officers Vincent Oluoch (Private Sector Engagement) and Joyce Peshu (Institutional Capacity Development – Governance and Inclusion) at the Kenya Wildlife Conservancy Association (KWCA). This article also considers my field observations and interviews conducted with the Manager of Naibunga Lower Community […]
Discovering nature in God’s own country
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OFTEN DECEIVEI was walking through the stands at the KTM – Kerala Travel Mart – the biggest travel show in South India, and I recall being drawn in by images of endless green landscapes displayed on a couple of wide TV screens at one of the stalls.I remember having quickly labelled […]
MY HOLI CELEBRATION
Intro Let’s start from the premise that I have never celebrated Holi, neither in cosmopolitan London, where there is a strong and old Indian community, nor in India while on holiday. I have always looked at the images of people covered in colours and having a great time with a mixture of enchanted curiosity and […]
A Modern Fairytale of Self-Discovery
INTRO What happens when you ask local community members, who are professionally involved in tourism, to present and promote themselves and their places to tourists? It depends. In East Africa, for example, we have seen the same story repeating itself. There are two parallel universes: the one they live in and experience every day, and […]
Grassroots Encounters: getting into the mud – Part Two
Part One GETTING INTO THE MUD If we define the boot camp as a field-based learning experience – as Dominic suggested – we can refer to the mud as a metaphor for the amount of learning that the experience provided to our changemakers. In a way, the mud is the proof that the boot camp […]
Grassroots Encounters – Part One
INTRO As a long-time friend of Greg Bagunzi and Red Rocks Rwanda, and an admirer of the work of Judy Kepher-Gona through the STTA in Kenya, I was interested in knowing more about the boot camp that STTA conducted during the annual Cultural Festival at Red Rocks, to which Traveller Storyteller has been a supporting […]
Empowering women in the mountains of Nepal
INTRO I had the good fortune to participate in the first day of the eco-tourism training in Kaski district, part of the Gandaki province, offered by Empowering Women of Nepal (EWN) and funded by the international agency USAID Nepal. I travelled by car with Lucky Chhetri, founder of EWN, to Chapakot village on the outskirts […]
Community Empowerment Lessons In a Tree Nursery
A DELICATE BALANCE TO MAINTAIN The fine balance between conservation and community development is hard to find and even harder to maintain, especially when the survival of the local people is at stake. Last October, I was invited to visit a remarkable project in a remote area of Kenya that day in and day out […]
Transforming Travel Marketing with Local Communities – Kenya22
INTRO October 2022 I met Rosemary in Rwanda. We were walking along under a hot sun, after having planted new trees on the south bank of the local river with other members of our host community in Musanze, when she shared the inspiring story of the women empowerment project that she started many years ago. […]
Gahiza Island – The surroundings
PART 2 The start of the day was gorgeous with a clear sky until, later, it started becoming grey – we imagined that it might rain soon, but we didn’t want to think about it until we had no other choice. There was nothing we could do but stay present and enjoy the moment, literally. […]