Angama Foundation: Raising Awareness and Conservation Funding – One Image at a Time

Each year, millions of wildebeest and zebra come thundering over the border between Tanzania and Kenya, making their way from the Serengeti into the Maasai Mara, and bringing with them a steady flow of travellers to observe the extraordinary spectacle of The Great Migration.  

However, having one of the world’s most iconic natural events occurring right on your doorstep can be both a blessing and a curse for those that call the Maasai Mara home. A blessing because every year, you can rely on ample tourism interest during the months of the migration, but also a curse because when the migration leaves, so too do the bulk of the Mara’s visitors. Yet there is life aplenty left behind, along with communities and conservation entities that depend on a steady flow of visitors and contributors to sustain them. 

Amongst those most negatively impacted are community members whom often get only seasonal employment when camps and lodges opt to open just during the migration. Additionally, national park authorities, which are heavily reliant on visitor fees for funding, can face financial challenges outside of the typical migration season. 

This deeply embedded seasonality pattern can, to a large extent, be blamed on marketing – with too great a focus placed on the migration and too little on the phenomenal wildlife-viewing that takes place outside of the “peak season” months. So if marketing created the problem, it made sense to look to marketing for the solution – which is how The Greatest Maasai Mara Photographer of the Year was born.

Now in its second year, The Greatest Maasai Mara Photographer of the Year was launched by the Angama Foundation to reinforce the status of the Maasai Mara National Reserve as one of the best year-round wildlife destinations on the continent, while raising much-needed funds for six boots-on-the-ground conservation NGOs working in and around the Mara.

In spreading the visual story of the Mara year-round, we are able to put the spotlight on the destination, its wildlife and its people, with the aim of ultimately ensuring the long-term survival of the park and putting an end to seasonal employment practices.

The annual photographic is open to photographers of all skills and the rules state that no migration images may be entered at any time other than during the Mara’s typical migration months of June to October.

Each month, a finalist is selected by a panel of acclaimed wildlife photographer judges, including Art Wolfe, Federico Veronesi, Adam Bannister, Nisha Purushothaman and Michael Poliza, as a contender to win the grand prize and earn the title: The Greatest Maasai Mara Photographer of the Year.

The prize is a substantial $10,000 in cash, with a five-night all-inclusive safari at Angama Mara, along with return local flights. Entry fees of $20 per image are donated in full to the entrant’s choice of one of six conservation partners: The Mara Elephant Project; The Maa Trust; The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust; The Mara Conservancy; and The Anne K. Taylor Fund; and The Angama Foundation.

The Mara’s community of safari guides are incentivized to support the competition and encourage their guests to enter through prizes for the winning photographer’s guide. Last year, the guide of the winning photographer won a new Suzuki four-wheel drive vehicle and this year, the top three guides will be flown to England to watch a life Premier League match.  

The results? The 2018 edition of the competition attracted almost 1,000 images and entry fees of over $16,500, which were donated in full to the conservation partners.

Giving an additional boost to the reach and fundraising potential, during 2019, the top 2018 entries were showcased at exhibitions around the world, including Nairobi, Seattle, Melbourne, Brisbane, Dubai and Cape Town, with Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Indianapolis, Moscow and Johannesburg still line up for this year. These exhibitions are run in partnership with African tour operators, and limited prints are auctioned during the events to raise additional funds for the six conservation partners. At the Cape Town event alone, more than $20,000 was raised in just one night.

Of course, the real prize is one that is likely to first emerge as a very subtle shift in perception: a fresh understanding that there is far more to the Mara than the migration, a consciousness that by rethinking just the timing of a trip (and without compromising on the wildlife experience), you can play a part in the long-term sustainability of one of the world’s most precious natural habitats for generations to come.

Author: This guest post is written by Nicky Fitzgerald of The Angama Mara, owner and co-founder. Nicky’s journey in hospitality has taken her from South Africa’s Western Cape through all the major wilderness high spots of Africa, and later India, where she was part of a team that built, opened, ran and marketed over 50 safari lodges for &aBeyond. Nicky also spent two years exploring ecotourism possibilities in Latin America. Now she is back at the front door of her lodge – a place she loves best of all.

A New Face At ATCF

May greetings to you all!  Some of you may have already received emails from me or noticed an announcement not too long ago about ATCF hiring a Membership & Outreach Coordinator; well I’m excited to introduce myself and share with you this news of launching this ATCF blog!

I am fortunate to be joining Soraya Shattuck, the Executive Director of the Adventure Travel Conservation Fund, as well as an amazing group of Board of Directors.  If you haven’t read their bios yet, I’d definitely recommend you check them out!  

One of my desires coming into this position involves building community.  It’s a tall order to coalesce the adventure travel and outdoor retailer industries together towards protecting and stewarding natural and cultural assets wherever adventure travel business transpires.  But, it’s possible! And the ATCF has been paving this path as we continue to learn and evolve, with all of your support, in continuing this journey.

What I’m excited about with this new role involves collaborating with each other, sharing stories, learning from what’s working and what’s not in the field and in the industry and supporting one another in treasuring all aspects of the places where we travel to protect this interconnected planet we are blessed to inhabit.  I hope this blog can be a step in this direction!

It’s our plan with this blog to share a variety of stories with you such as highlighting lessons learned from the field, showcasing extraordinary stories, commenting on topics current in the news, showcasing news related to our grant projects, reviewing trade or industry shows and more.  If you have ideas for us, great; share them! If you want to guest write a post for us; awesome, let’s line that up! If you have an idea you would love to hear our thoughts on or explored by us, let us know!

To give you all a bit more background on myself and what brought me to the ATCF, I first off want to share that I grew up very active – playing soccer (I still play!), skiing, snowboarding, hiking, running and traveling the world (I still do all these things too!).  I was fortunate to spend the year abroad in college – Quito, Ecuador & Santiago, Chile – and that experience blew my mind and inspired me to pursue work in the international development field, which led me to double major in Spanish and International Studies. I went on to work at Global Exchange, the Foundation for Sustainable Development, Fair Trade USA and SeeYourImpact before entering an MBA in Sustainable Business program at the Presidio Graduate School (formerly Pinchot University).  In addition to work and school, nature has always played a big part in my life with getting out every day for a walk or hike and feeling most at home in the outdoors. This immense love prompted me to start my own company Naturefy as well as begin working as a wilderness tour guide for Evergreen Escapes in Seattle and join the board of Rite of Passage Journeys all of which I am still active and pursing currently. This brings me full circle to the ATCF where I am thrilled to once again work at an international level and have the opportunity to bring different groups together work to protect and enhance vital natural places worldwide.

I look forward to working with you all, meeting you when that chance may arise and collaborating with you all to do our part in stewarding cherished places that we hold dear throughout the world.   Please do not hesitate to reach out to me and I look forward to working with you all!

Many blessings,

Marisa

Spring is Here

Spring is in full bloom here in Seattle and we are riding this energy with ramping up towards our grant season and upcoming tradeshows/conferences!  In addition, we have plenty going on that we want to share with as well as offer some ways you can participate and contribute.

Don’t Forget - Project Nominations Open!
In case you didn’t see, we opened up our project nominations to solicit projects from our members.  And if you're not already a member, we’d be happy to help you become one! ATCF members may nominate up to two conservation projects for funding consideration by Friday, May 17, 2019. The projects nominated must meet our funding criteria. We encourage you to talk with your team, suppliers and greater network to find and submit great projects worthy of funding.

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Project Updates!
The 9 grant projects that our ATCF members supported in 2017 & 2018 are all moving forward in wonderful ways!  Check out what they have been working on!

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ATCF MEMBERS
Stay tuned for newly re-designed visuals showcasing these grants that you can share with your customers! We hope to have these released next week, in addition to social media bites and updated project photos so that your community can easily recognize how you are making a difference for travel destinations all over the world.

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Calling for Your Support!
The ATCF is holding our second auction and would appreciate your donations! With 100% of our membership dues going directly to finance conservation projects, we rely on events like this to raise funds to directly support the ATCF in administering our grant program. Last year, we ran our first successful auction (grossing over $12,000) and plan to carry out two more in 2019!

New Member

"We have grown by becoming part of a large community of entrepreneurs, dreamers and leaders that are bonded not only because there is an industry and business interest, but because there is passion and heart in what they do. We would love to be part of the Fund that can help us all guarantee amazing adventures to future generations. " - Mariana Caliuolo

Share Your Conservation Work!
Thanks to all those who responded to our call for stories that feature important conservation initiatives or lessons learned in the field. We hope to highlight stories that have a clear connection to the travel industry, and that encompasses an environmental or cultural focus.

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Speaking of stories, check out this recently released video that ATCF member World Nomads put out in partnership with The Sea Turtle Conservation organization documenting the work they are doing in Costa Rica. This project’s aim is to reduce the impacts of climate change on sea turtles and promote eco-tourism around Tortuguero Beach, which hosts the largest green turtle rookery in the Western Hemisphere as a way to build sustainable conservation programs that provide revenue for local communities. Way to go World Nomads!

There are few sights cuter than that of a baby turtle make its way across a beach to the ocean. On the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, conservationists and volunteers from The Sea Turtle Conservancy are working to save generations of sea turtles.