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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Kisoro Organic Coffee Experience
Just outside Kisoro, there is an organic coffee farm that I was invited to visit by one of the participants of the Community Storytelling Workshop, which I held in the town as part of the field activities of Traveller Storyteller. Peter and his lovely wife Elizabeth own one of the first coffee farms in the […]
Going Beyond Voluntourism In The Eastern Cape
An initial response of resistance was felt in my guts as soon as I heard the term Voluntourism. Whether wanted or not, this word triggers a small inner storm of reactions, for having been associated, especially in recent decades, with a few bad practices worldwide, built on fake humanitarian projects . Regardless of those unconscious […]
Leymebamba
A small town of the Utcubamba Valley – in the northern region of Chachapoya –perching at 1,800 metres in the Peruvian Amazon, has re-discovered its cultural roots thanks to the warm passion of its inhabitants. In the quietness of the altitude, surrounded by much higher peaks and built on stones, you will find a town, […]