The Greater Mara Ecosystem extends over 25,000 km², crossing the Tanzanian border into the Serengeti National Park, where it spans another 30,000 km². Home to an astonishing biodiversity of plants and animals, it is one of the oldest and most complex natural environments on earth.
Environmental conservation: Each guest staying pays a conservation fee that contributes to the essential running costs of the Masai Mara. The park fee helps to safeguard this area of outstanding biodiversity for generations to come. In addition, your conservation fee donation is distributed among local communities bordering the reserve, creating an enduring link between conservation and development.
Sala’s Camp, the luxurious Masai Mara lodge, is lucky enough to be situated in a rhino sanctuary area. The Safari Collection donates a small fee each guest staying per night for to the Rhino Monitoring Team, who provide vital protection to this highly threatened species.
Have you ever seen a pangolin? Tragically, these fascinating creatures are at risk of extinction before most people have even heard of one. As the most trafficked mammals in the world, they need protection now. The Safari Collection supports The Pangolin Project – the only organisation of its kind in East Africa. It promotes pangolin awareness through community education and has a research team based at Sala’s Camp.
Sala’s Camp works in close conjunction with the Mara Cheetah Project and Mara Lion Project, assisting with fundraising, data collection and as a base for their staff when in the south of the Masai Mara.
Tourism has the power to change lives for the better.
The Safari collection is heavily focused on sustainability and giving back. Focus their efforts to be low impact, community, and conservation-oriented to the core. If local communities can experience direct benefits linked to tourism, they immediately become more invested in protecting the wilderness around them.
Know all about their programs:
Westgate Community Conservancy: supports wildlife conservation alongside the sustainable development of infrastructure for the Samburu people living here.
Medical clinics: free medical clinics to provide access to life-changing eye surgeries and dental treatments for people living in remote communities with little or no access to healthcare.
Community Health Africa Trust: CHAT delivers family planning and health services to women in the remotest of locations, enabling them to take control of their bodies and their lives.
TEAM talk: Empowering girls through an innovative combination of sports and education workshops, with a focus on sexual education and family planning.
SAFE Samburu: Inspiring social change through dance and theatre, helping local Samburu communities to address issues of HIV and female genital mutilation.
Education projects: With the belief that education is the key to eradicating poverty and hunger, and a vital part of successful conservation. The Safari Collection aims to educate and empower the communities through interactive wildlife excursions, scholarships, sports, theatre, and healthcare. Through a wide range of education projects, they are able to communicate a variety of important messages to people who need information and in areas that need their protection.
Waste reduction: To keep our waste to an absolute minimum, almost all their fruit, vegetables, and salads are delivered unpackaged. And their chefs are great at making everything from scratch: tasty homemade granola, baked beans, you name it. This helps to avoid tinned or plastic wrapped products which are often imported from overseas.
Food miles: We purchase as many freshly grown and locally available products as possible to reduce the miles food travels to our tables. At most of our properties, produce only has to travel a few meters from our own kitchen gardens which are full of homegrown goodies. At Sasaab we have a brood of hens for fresh eggs, and the eggs at Solio are bought from a local orphanage as a sustainable income-generating project.
Composting & recycling: Compost is created which goes back into their kitchen gardens and 98% of the other waste is recycled through a social enterprise in Nairobi called Taka Taka Solutions.
Green power: The Safari Collection uses solar energy exclusively where possible to provide electricity, and water is heated using solar-powered boilers. This reduces their electricity use to almost zero, apart from the odd time when the sun doesn’t shine! All the power and water use is monitored and timer switches have been put in place to reduce the power consumption.
All their drinking water is produced on-site using reverse osmosis machines, making it transport-free and packaging-free, as well as delicious. Reverse osmosis is one of the most effective systems for removing all traces of minerals and bacteria from water, leaving it completely pure.
Save a bucket: The average tap uses two gallons of water per minute. If it takes two minutes to heat the water, that’s four gallons per day, which when calculated at one shower a day, adds up to almost 1500 gallons of water per person per room each year. To help reduce the amount of water used, they provide a bucket for you to place under the tap when the water is cold. When the water is hot, remove the bucket. The water you collect is re-used for watering plants and cleaning. Just one bucket may not seem like much, but it adds up.
Reduce, reuse, recycle:
Finding a second life for things, only using natural, biodegradable products, including toiletries and insecticide in every room.
Plastic-free – no plastic water bottles. The Safari Collection gives every client a reusable metal water bottle for them to keep, reducing the amount of plastic waste being generated. Since introducing reusable water bottles, they have reduced their plastic waste by 85%.