388 | Have your own wild bird sanctuary

Welfare and Conservation

Where birds thrive, people prosper. It has been proven that people who live and work in spaces that are connected to nature are happier, healthier and more productive. From farms to rural towns, each community can provide important habitat for wild birds. In turn, birds offer us a richer, more beautiful, and healthful place to live.

Unfortunately over the past century every established settlement, no matter how big or small, has taken ecologically productive land and fragmented and transformed it with sterile lawns and exotic ornamental plants. Every settlement introduced walls of glass, toxic pesticides, and domestic predators. The human-dominated landscape no longer supports functioning ecosystems or provides healthy places for birds.

Creating bird-friendly communities is BirdsConTour's commitment to the welfare and conservation of our urban, suburban and rural places. We can restore and reconnect these places. We can reestablish the ecological functions of any settlement. We can provide sustainable safe habitats for wild birds.

To achieve this, BirdsConTour established the Wild Bird Sanctuary Program. BirdsConTour transforms your home, church, school, common property, lodge, guest farm or any business into a certified haven for wild birds. Every wild bird sanctuary owner then receives an attractive certificate for display purposes, announcing to visitors, clients, guests and everybody else the certified wild bird sanctuary.

By simply contacting BirdsConTour under 0811298415 or birdscontour@iway.na, everyone can help make their place and community bird-friendly.

Stay ahead with BirdsConTour. Our electronic newsletter, Words of Feather, www.birdscontour.blogspot.com, shares the latest info.

387 | Support for Rhinos

CONSERVATION

Support a Rhino Ranger project

In Asia, less than 50 Javan, 250 Sumatran and about 3 000 Indian rhinos survive in the wild. In Africa, there are around 5 000 Black rhinos and 20 000 White rhinos, mostly living in Southern Africa. While several rhino subspecies have been declared extinct in the wild in the last 12 years, commercial and highly organized poaching is an enormous threat to all populations worldwide. A sudden and significant upsurge in poaching in the last 7 years emerged within South Africa alone, on average almost two rhinos are poached each day.

Anti Poaching Crusade with the Support a Rhino Ranger initiative means helping these frontline heroes with keeping rhinos safe from poachers. Keeping this Support a Rhino Ranger initiative effective requires many people sponsoring new and gently used clothing, binoculars, sleeping bags, tents, blankets, hats, shoes, torches, headlamps, pocket knives and other usable equipment.

Therefore BirdsConTour donated items gathered from guests by its Support a Rhino Ranger initiative to rangers from Save The Rhino Trust.

Whenever this "Support a Rhino Ranger box" is full it gets delivered to the rangers.

384 | Owned by the Naro San - Dqae Qare San Lodge

WELFARE, CONSERVATION & TOURISM

The San people (bushmen) at Dqae Qare San Lodge are rightfully very proud of their tourist facilities and cherish the guests valuable support of their development.

The San living in the nearby village D'Kar and not on the Dqae Qare farm, delight in the opportunity to come over here and share their culture with the guests.

The central Kalahari Desert of Dqae Qare is remarkably rich in wildlife and biotic diversity which is well looked after by Dqae Qare farm.

For all these efforts BirdsConTour awarded the Dqae Qare San Lodge with a three penguin-rated Welfare, Conservation & Tourism Support 2015 Award.

383 | Gcadikwe Island Camp - in the heart of the Okavango Delta

TOURISM

Gcadikwe Island Camp, located in Botswana's Okavango Delta (World Heritage Site), focuses on unspoilt African Wilderness.

BirdsConTour rewarded the Gcadikwe Island Camp with a one penguin-rated Tourism Support 2015 Award.

382 | Warm welcome at Mankwe Bush Lodge, Botswana

TOURISM

The warm welcome that receives guests as they tumble out of their vehicle, is undoubtedly typical of Mankwe Bush Lodge. The hosts are thoughtful and funny, letting guests want to stay longer than they planned.

BirdsConTour rewarded the Mankwe Bush Lodge with a one penguin-rated Tourism Support 2015 Award.

381 | A Heart for a Baobab

CONSERVATION

The Okavango tour members busy placing stones around a Baobab seedling.

This young Baobab tree seems to have survived its first three critical years of age.

African Baobab

The African Baobab, with its multiple uses, is a long-lived tee, some being over 1 000 years old. With its swollen trunk it reaches a height of 18-25 m. The irregular globular shaped fruit, measuring 10-45 cm, contains a dry, edible, powdery pulp that covers the hard black kidney-shaped seeds. Especially elephants eat these fruits, dispersing seeds and braking the seed dormancy and thereby encouraging regeneration. But with elephants now being in danger of extinction because of habitat destruction and poaching, the natural regeneration of Baobab is badly affected. Furthermore the survival of Baobab populations is being threatened by environmental degradation and climate change. Baobab seedlings get gobbled up by livestock and can't tolerate drought for its first three years.

This is a matter of concern and BirdsConTour created the A Heart for a Baobab project. Wherever BirdsConTour encounters a young Baobab tree a heart of stones is placed around it, in a way of creating awareness about the threat to Baobabs.

379 | Chobe Bush Lodge, Botswana - it is difficult to leave

TOURISM

At the Chobe Bush Lodge guests are right next door to the Chobe National Park. The game drives and boat cruises allows one to see elephant, giraffe, buffalo, waterbuck, hippo, crocodile, lion, roan antelope, sable and even puku among many others.

BirdsConTour rewarded the Chobe Bush Lodge with a one penguin-rated Tourism Support 2015 Award.