Eco-tourism in Kenya

Working towards sustainable tourism in Kenya - KIGO CONSERVANCY - An example of ECOTOURISM.

Kigio Conservancy was set up in 1997 on an old beef / dairy ranch with the aim of providing a wildlife sanctuary and a sustainable eco-tourism destination.

The accommodation at Kigio is in "cottages" built of mud, timber and thatch, using local and reclaimed materials and methods. The furniture is built from re-claimed timber from the ground and there is no electricity, oil lamps are instead used. They have now installed solar panels to help generate electricity.

Kigio has a number of ecotourism activities it is involved in:

- partnerships with local communities - helping to fund and work on community projects
- provides links with local schools with schools in the UK, raising money for new classrooms and other projects (e.g. water tanks)
- partnerships with conservation organisations such as the Tusk Trust - which has involved setting up conservation centre for use by local schools and providing sustainable development education for local communities
- employees local people - e.g. guides and other workers
- conservation activities - e.g. looking after orphaned wildlife - e.g. 2003 relocation of giraffe into the area - including a baby giraffe from the Karen Blixen Giraffe Orphange in Nairobi.

Kenya - Tourism in a poor country

Where is Kenya?

Kenya is located in East Africa, its capital city is Nairobi and it has a population of approximately 30 million people.

Why visit Kenya?

- it has an attractive climate (tropical) with sunshine all year round, hot and humid at the coast; temperate inland and dry in the NE (rainy season - April-June and Oct-Dec, heavy rainfall in the afternoon and early evening)

- Safari holidays are popular - e.g. in the Maasai Mara / Nakuru National Park - Kenya has spectacular wildlife - including the big 5 - Lion, Elephant, Rhinoceros, Leopard and Buffalo

- Cultural experience - many tourists visit local tribes such as the Maasai to find out more about their lifestyle and traditions

- Coastal Holidays - SE of Kenya has fine sands and coral reefs with spectacular marine life - e.g. Mombassa

Why have numbers of tourists visiting Kenya increased?

Kenya was one of the first LEDC countries to acheive mass tourism and in the 1970s and 1980s there was a rapid increase in the numbers of tourists, particularly following the release of the films Born Free and Out of Africa.

- Tourist numbers have also increased as larger aircraft in the 1980s brought prices of air travel down.

Advantages of Tourism to Kenya:

- Tourism encourages the building of new roads and better communications
- Jobs in tourism have helped develop people's business skills
- Tourism has created all year round jobs for Kenyans
- Tourism is Kenya's biggest earner of foreign exchange
- Tourism has stimulated farming, by creating a demand for local food from farmers
- National Parks have been created - encouraging people to protect the environment.

Disadvantages of Tourism for Kenya:

- there is leakage of income - with a lot of the money paid for holidays never actually reaching Kenya (travel companies and foreign owned hotels get it instead)
- Safari minibuses disturb animals - often getting too close (e.g. can be 30-40 buses around a single animal in the Maasai Mara), they also cause soil erosion as the wheels churn up the grass
- many Maasai are traditionally nomadic, but many have been forced out of the National Parks - losing their land and also losing their traditional lifestyles.
- Hot air balloons in parks disturb animals - by casting shadows and from the noise of the burners.
- Coastal Environments such as those in Mombassa have been damaged - e.g. destruction of coral reefs as tourists step on the coral and also take souvenirs.

Mr. Still

Flickr

A very short unimpressive post but the point is use flickr to find high quality pictures which are different to other people - much better than just using google




Flickr

Just one of the images I found on Flickr from - Lyndon Firman

Mr. Still

Stumled upon this little gem...

This little gem as it were is called Newseum. You can access newspaper front pages from around the globe. This is from what has been dubbed Ash Friday:

Click on the picture and it will take you to the website. Check out the archived pages I have put some of the links below. I like it a lot:

Haiti Earthquake front pages

Saints win the Superbowl - not Geography but I like it

Mr. Still

New Iceland photo!!

Just found this and thought it was awesome - so had to share it

Mr. Still

Iceland volcano!!

This year has been the year for tectonic hazards. In fact I am thinking of re-writing my 'Risky Planet' SOW to include only examples from the last year. Possibly a stretch but there have been major hazards so far this year - Haiti, Chile & Tsunami, China and now the eruption at Eyjafjallajoekull - Iceland. Maybe the film 2012 has a point?

With lots of stuff flying around the Internet I thought I would post some of the good stuff and where to keep yourself up-to-date:

The trusty BBC website lots of news as the Volcano erupts.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8630455.stm

The maps are quite interesting on where the ash is falling and changing wind patterns. This map shows the spread of the ash cloud and flights that have happened today:

Icelandic Blog

OK, now it may not be in English but important part is the webcams - scroll the page and there are quite a lot about the many volcanoes in Iceland

http://islande2010.mbnet.fr/2010/04/eyjafjallajokul-links-liens-a-propos-de-leyjafjallajokul/

Another very useful place to look at pictures of the eruption is Flickr. I will post about the usefulness of Flickr later as it very useful for finding excellent interesting pictures.

These two people have taken pictures of the eruption - have a look and be impressed!!

Steini3 and Helga*

This is one I really like:

Finally a bit of fun - this comes from MSN and is a photogallery of volcanic sunsets!!

http://news.uk.msn.com/photos/photos.aspx?cp-documentid=153092909 - press the play button

Mr. Still

Types of Volcano

I found this today and thought it was very good. Credit to Mrs. Newlands.

Types Of Volcanoes

View more presentations from tudorgeog.

Mr. Still

Photography Competition

I recently brought a new camera and thought I would start this again. You to bring in a picture of something to do with Geography you have taken yourself.

It can be on electronic media or printed.

There will be prizes!!

I look forward to your entires!!

Mr. Still

Thought these were cool!!

The legendary Geographer Tony Cassidy created these and I thought I should share them with you.

Mr. Still

Another video!!

This video shows the impacts of increased energy use! Very useful for revision!!

Mr. Still

Atolls??

As part of the our concept driven South Pacific unit we have incorporated the teaching of atolls. These strange carbonate landforms are very interesting and the students like them as you can incorporate a bit of Finding Nemo and playdough.



I found this animation which is useful but has no explanation - wikipedia is actually surprisingly useful!!

This is a strange exciting landform in a part of the world students rarely see and one I particularly like.

Mr. Still

Development Cartoons

I have been looking at cartoons and using them in the classroom as a way to put different geographical ideas across particularly looking at development.

I am going to set designing cartoons as a homework for year 8 in two weeks time.

Mr. Still

Podcasting!!

I trialled this a few ago and Mr. McCrae carried out the trial with his year 9 class. I intend to get my year 9 classes to create their own podcasts on the impacts of increased energy use.

I am looking forward to seeing how creative you can be!

I will upload the files onto onlinegeography (link below) so that you can listen to yourselves and your friends.

www.onlinegeography.wikispaces.org

Mr. Still

Few new videos

I few more videos I have created:

Call Centres - Why have companies such as BT set up call centres in India?



Chamonix - Tourism in glaciated areas: the attractions, benefits, problems and sustainable management



Use them for your revision :)

Mr. Still

Welcome back!!

Welcome back after the Easter break and hopefully you have not had too many Easter eggs.

I was really pleased with the number of people who attended the Geography Easter revision sessions. I appreciate that you have given up part of your holiday and I think you found them very useful from what I can gather from your evaluations!! Your suggestions to improve them have been taken into account including having more food and shorter sessions!!

A few points:

• now is the time to step up and really push on with your revision Yr11 and Yr10
• Yr11 revision sessions will continue Glacier this week. After that the topics will be determined by you. This means you need to let Mr. McCrae or myself on which topics you would like to go over
• Yr10 - This week letters will go out informing about revision sessions which will be Tuesday after school. They will have a consent form on them so make sure you get your parents/guardians to sign them!

I am looking forward to another term with lots of new ideas and a new enthusiasm.

Mr. Still

Year 8 - Parents/Options evening!!

I hope to see many of you at the parents/options evening on Monday. I have posted the following videos below about Geography at GCSE and possible jobs/careers using Geography.

Geography at GCSE



Jobs and Geography



Below is a link to onlinegeography - the department website with lots of extra information. This very useful for revision for exams.

Online Geography

Mr. Still

Finding good pictures

Finding good, interesting and relevant pictures for lessons or homework can sometimes be difficult so here are a few links to make it easier:

Flickr - very useful. Use the search function to find pictures of what I call real photos taken by real people at real people

Shabi - very useful again. It searches flickr, google and yahoo to find photos most relevant to your search

Geograph - excellent photo database covering every OS map grid square in the country - just type in what you want and if it is in the UK it will find it

Quintura - a visual search engine which brings very good results

My picture of the day:

See what you can find - Mr. Still

Google Earth 3D buildings

I recently used Google Earth again, to show the location of different tourist attractions. A particularly useful way was to get the students to recognise the tourist destinations as 3D buildings.To view the 3D buildings make sure the 3D buildings layer is turned on or you can download buildings people have made from the Google Earth 3D Warehouse.

Mr. Still

Very interesting website

I found this the other day and was very impressed. Year 10 and Year 9 should become familar with this for the Globalisation unit which focuses on sustainable energy. The website has information on many small-scale sustainable energy projects across the world.

Women in Nepal carrying cables to help set up wind turbines.

Practical Action weblink

Mr. Still

The Milk Truck

I thought this was very cool and spent far too long driving round like Jensen Button. I did enjoy driving round different tourist attractions in London but also found some buildings in Grimsby.

The milk truck by the Dock Tower

The milk truck by Blundell Park

Have some fun!

Monster Milk Truck link

You may have to download the browser plug-in but this is very easy.

Mr. Still

Blood Diamonds - Google Earth

I blogged about this a long time ago and thought I might talk about The Diamond Trade. I will use it with Year 7 this week.

See the link below for lesson ideas from Noel Jenkins

Juicy Geography

Mr. Still

Past exam questions

The link below has all the past papers for the last three years available for download. You can also download the mark schemes.

I am more than happy to mark any questions you answer.

Exam paper link

Mr. Still

Revsion Sessions - Easter

Make sure you bring your consent forms back this week for Easter revision sessions.

Year 11 - Monday 12th and Wednesday 14th April - 9am-12

Year 10 - Tuesday 13th April - 9am-12

Mr. Still

What's on this week.....

Year 11

The majority of classes will start managing resources the final topic of your GCSE. A letter will
also be given out this week to invite you to revision sessions starting in February. Coursework sessions Monday and Thursday after school will continue as normal from this week.

Year 10

We continue with our revision based for your mock exam

Year 9

You have your end of unit test this week.

Year 8

It is all about earthquakes and we look at what happened in Haiti.

Year 7

We look at Las Vegas and Dubai this week.

Mr. Still