Sayari Camp Sustainability Actions
Sayari Camp has been in the Northern Serengeti-Mara/Kogatende area now for almost 5 years. The camp has always had a good sustainable relationship in and outside the National Park.
Outside the National Park Sayari has always had a good working relationship with the nearby villages. Sayari supports the local community by creating employment opportunities, some of our local staff have been with Sayari Camp from the start providing a solid income for them and their families. Sayari Camp also has a project whereby the camp employs up to 8 Askaris/watchmen every month from 5 different villages, the camp alternates between the different villages so that each village has the opportunity to represent themselves at the camp, and make extra income for them and their families. When Sayari started in this area the camp together with the Honeyguide Foundation started a vegetable program whereby Honeyguide supplied the villages with seeds and showed them how to grow different types of vegetables and in return Sayari would then buy these vegetables from them for the guests and staff in camp. The vegetable program was a great success and incentive for the local community to earn a another type of income, since 2009 Sayari and the Honeyguide foundation have taken this project even further and now have a permanent office in the area working even closer with the community and the vegetable program. Sayari camp buys vegetables from the community now on almost a daily basis when the camp is full, and with the interest in this area of the park increasing and more development of the area growing the local community will be able to sell their vegetables to more camps. Since 2010 Sayari also started a project whereby we take guests for a cultural visit to the Wakuria villages, similar to the visits they do to the Massai Bomas further south in the Country. Furthermore Sayari Camp (Asilia) supports the Machochwe Secondary School in the Northern Serengeti District with donations every year.
Inside the National Park Sayari Camp works hard to leave a zero footprint on the environment. We sort all our waste, bio and non-biodegradable, non-biodegradable waste gets sorted in Plastic, glass, rubber, foil/tin/metal and gets taken out of the park and recycled in Arusha. All non-biodegradable waste before leaving camp is weighed and recorded so that we can see if we are sending out more waste then other recorded months, and if so we have to cut down. Sayari Camp also installed a grey-water recycling unit and all our grey-water gets cleaned and reused to cut down on water consumption. The hot water for all our guest tents are solar heated to cut down on generator running times. Sayari camp also has a very good environment friendly battery/inverter system that supplies power to the camp when the generator is off, again cutting down on the amount of hours we have to run the generator. Almost all products used in the different departments within Sayari Camp are eco-friendly including some of the cleaning products.
Sayari Camp also maintains a good healthy working relationship with Tanapa, the park authority, Sayari supports them in general maintenance within the park, information on game sightings seen in the area and day to day occurrences.
Sayari Camp has played a pivotal role in the long-term conservation of the northwestern Serengeti. The arrival of the camp has secured the long term conservation of this area of the park. Employment at the camp, and a fruit and vegetable growing program initiated by Sayari, has provided opportunities for the villages at the park’s border to benefit from the tourism in the national park.
