What a fantastic night last Thursday in Sydney with the launch of M&R Wild and our first conservation project on the ground - the Akagera Elephant Project in Rwanda!  Thanks so much to all of you who came along to support the cause. 

Thanks to The Carousel for publishing my short piece on my new project in Rwanda on Akagera National Park's elephants.  If you live in Sydney you can join Andy and I to hear more about this, raise a few bob for the project, have a yarn about Africa and the great conservation work being done in Akagera to re-wild this amazing park, at an evening of drinks and canapes at Moorish Blue, MacMahons Point in Sydney on Thursday 17 May.  That's only two weeks away but we do still have space so don't dally to book. 

I'm no pro-videographer, but I did manage to capture some lovely moments with the mountain gorillas when in Rwanda last year.  The product, thanks to my awesome editor Chao from Daoyu Pictures, is what you see here.  

Before you press delete and pass on reading this blog, I'm going to tell you that this is a story of hopeful possibilities.  But it starts with a terrible tragedy, one that could well be repeated if we don't all do our part to stop it. 

I always love taking people to Namibia.  Twenty years ago when I lived in Etosha National Park studying the black-faced impala, it wasn't on anyone's radar.  But Namibia has grown in popularity for travellers, partly because it offers such a unique, wild and adventurous African experience but also because of the relative safety and stability of the country.  This is the kind of holiday that literally takes your breath away at times.  It's so different to anywhere else in the world that it's easy to forget that you have a life outside! To top it off, I still reckon Namibia's right up there with Botswana in terms of linking tourism to conservation impacts, another great reason to go there if you are an ethically-minded traveller.  Namibia has really led the way in terms of community-based tourism in Africa, with local ownership making a huge difference in combating poaching.  You'd be hard pressed to find a country anywhere in the world doing a better job of nature conservation than this.

2018 started with the fantastic news that China's ban on ivory trade had kicked in, a huge step that will make a difference for Africa's elephants.  As soon as President Xi made the announcement that this was to occur in 2015, we saw results, from the drop in ivory prices from a high of US$2000/kg to US$500/kg, to an 80% decline in ivory seizures in the country.  All of China's 172 ivory carving factories were closed in December.  Progress!  The fight is not over, but there is evidence of declines in elephant poaching in Kenya and Tanzania in the last year.  The UN has called for a global total ban on ivory trade, with Japan being the last major ivory consuming country yet to join in.  

As the end of the year approaches, it's a good time to reflect on where we've come at Matson & Ridley Safaris and what you can expect from us in the years to come.

I've long admired the work of conservation organisation, African Parks, because what they do works.  They're not all talk when it comes to real wildlife conservation.  Where they take over the management of parks, like Zakouma National Park, Chad, we've seen real conservation outcomes, meaning the poaching virtually disappears and wildlife numbers swiftly pick up. They also focus on local communities bordering these parks, looking for ways to help them benefit from the wildlife, but the big impact they make is they create jobs.  In the Central African Republic, where African Parks manages Chinko National Park, home to the rare central African lion, they are the biggest employer of local people outside the capital, and the largest tax payer in the country!  Jobs means local benefits from the wildlife and especially in countries that few tourists visit, this is vital for conservation.

Imagine yourself on the African savannah, with a glass of wine or a nice cold beer in your hand, while literally hundreds of thousands of wildebeest graze around you.  You hear their grunts all day and all night, a constant, gentle background noise, punctuated every so often by the staccato haw-haw of a zebra or the woo-oop of a spotted hyaena.  It's never quiet in the Serengeti, but that's just fine; this is the kind of noise I like. 

In the last month I've been fortunate to lead two groups of intrepid travellers to experience up close the majesty of the mountain gorillas of Rwanda.  Words do a pretty poor job of explaining how it feels when you're just metres away from one of our closest relatives in the wild green heart of Africa, but I'm going to give it a go in this blog. There's a reason why this experience is so high on many peoples' wildlife bucket lists.  It's very, very special.  And I can't tell you how impressed I am with the country of Rwanda.  I can't believe it's taken me this long to visit!