New Gorilla Lodge Empowers Community

In the Virunga mountains of Rwanda, tourists pay top dollar for the privilege of tracking mountain gorillas. When local communities benefit from this tourism, they have more incentive to protect gorillas and other wildlife. One AWF solution in the Kinigi community of Rwanda is the the Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge.

The Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge is a high-end, 16-bed conservation lodge on community land adjacent to Volcanoes National Park. The lodge provides the setting for a unique and exciting tourism experience in which visitors can experience local wildlife and see African conservation in action.

AWF successfully brokered a deal for the lodge’s development with the Kinigi community, which owns the land, and several other parties. To minimize the community’s financial risk, AWF helped structure a loan so that interest payments are only triggered by income. Interest will only accrue when the community sees commensurate income. In business terms, this is a “subordinated equity deal.” In conservation terms, it is a precedent that could open the way for conservation tourism development across the continent.

The conservation pay-off of this effort is great. Availability of exclusive accommodations attracts more guests to national parks, encourages longer stays, provides communities with a marketable tourism product and contributes to management funds for protected area authorities through increased gate collections and fees from gorilla permits.

> Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge is featured on Condé Nast Traveller's The Hot List 2008. Sabyinyo ranks as one of the world's "most stylish, most innovative, most luxurious hotels".

http://www.cntraveller.co.uk/Special_Features/The_Hot_List_2008/Sabyinyo_Silverback_Lodge.