Good migrations: The ethics of safaris
Nothing says peak capitalist arrogance quite like a luxury hotel chain pitching up at a game reserve, expecting the animals who have been trekking along the same bush pathways for millennia for the Great Migration to suddenly veer off-course to accommodate a new five-star safari camp.
And then they market that same—albeit now disrupted—migration to affluent guests ostensibly interested in wildlife conservation, who fork out thousands of dollars a night for a ringside view of what is often called the greatest show on earth, brought to you no less by Mother Nature, while the hotel puffs its chest, smug in its own corporate commitment to sustainability and the environment.
Cosplaying environmental concern
This is exactly what the Ritz-Carlton and its owner, the Marriott Group, have done with their new $5000-a-night, 20-suite Ritz-Carlton Masai Mara Safari Camp, built right smack on the Sand River, along the wildlife corridor that links the Masai Mara Reserve in Kenya and the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania.
It’s the same corridor on ancient land that sees over two million wildebeest, zebras and gazelles make the epic year-round journey together in search of fresh grazing fields and water, following a migration path that begins in Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Crater and culminates in the Masai Mara, only for the herds to loop back again from the Mara to the Serengeti in a rhythm dictated by the rains. The most dramatic stage of this never-ending trek typically occurs between July and October, when the herds cross the crocodile-infested Mara River and scale steep ravines in what becomes a literal struggle between life and death.
The Ritz-Carlton is not the first corporate entity virtue-signalling community values and cosplaying environmental concern whilst in reality being powered by greed—with the collusion of equally greedy and corrupt local government agencies and tourist boards—nor will it be the last. The hypocrisy, though par for the capitalist course, is nonetheless staggering.
Greenwashing at its finest
“Elevated among lush trees in the heart of the Masai Mara National Reserve,” so gushes the website in hackneyed promotional copy, the hotel situates itself as a “revered safari destination” that is “sustainably designed in harmony with nature,” effortlessly blending “luxury, authenticity and adventure to craft once-in-a-lifetime moments.”
Moreover, the property claims to be architecturally rendered in a way that is “seamlessly integrated into the natural wilderness” so that guests may “awaken with a profound sense of nature’s awe as you witness the mesmerizing sights and sounds of the Great Migration.”
This is, once again, orientalizing, patronizing colonial bullshit shrouded in the cloying, oft-abused language of sustainability and authenticity. Greenwashing, in other words.
For how can one promise an authentic, once-in-a-lifetime safari experience when at the same time one is actively degrading that very wilderness with yet another luxury camp, disrupting the animals’ natural instincts and ancient migratory patterns, and by logical extension, affecting their fertility and hastening population decline, and ultimately endangering the survival of the earth we live in, flora, fauna, and the entire biosphere?
The land remembers
A luxury tours specialist, Ema Silva, wrote, citing recently published data in “Nature Communications,” that “when migration routes are blocked or fragmented, we’re not just changing animal behavior—we’re potentially triggering species-level genetic consequences.”
It makes me wonder what kind of due diligence Ritz-Carlton—and indeed other similar hospitality companies eager to cash in on the “authentic travel experience” bandwagon—undertake when building a new property.
Do they partner and build deep relationships with local communities and listen to the indigenous elders who have been custodians of their ancestral lands for generations? Do they commission independent studies on the ecological impact of construction on the food and water supply, upon which both people, plants, and animal life rely for their survival? Do they truly respect the safari destination they claim to revere?
I think not. For if they did in fact recognize the sacredness of this land that is as old as time, from whence humankind arose from the dust, they would not be choosing to leave their hypocritical carbon-laden footprint on this territory.
I can’t help but think of a passage from “My Mother’s Lovers,” a sprawling, often biting novel by the South African author Christopher Hope, which captures so brilliantly the hordes of white people who have trampled upon Africa’s paths for centuries:
“Large white men telling you with tears in their eyes how much they love Africa; it’s a cloying, it’s crap, and, worse still, they mean it. There is also usually anger buried in this claim, maybe because these lovers know that the beloved doesn’t give a toss, never thinks of them, and may well loathe the sight and smell of them…”
Having lived in South Africa for 10 years, I can attest that every word Hope has written is true. Today’s neo-colonizers—And is it any surprise that the president and COO of Ritz-Carlton and the board of the Marriott are mostly white?—come bearing gifts of joint ventures and luxury tourism that enslave more than empower, that defile more than consecrate, that cash in more than protect and preserve.
The land always remembers who loves it and who exploits it.
