A cross-cultural “no borders” exchange between US-based land owners, Native American tribal leaders, government representatives and park conservationists and their counterparts from Namibia will gather in September in Montana to share ideas on how tourism fits into their respective ideologies and onto their lands.
Delegates will meet with property owners, managers and government officials to explore how they manage wide open spaces and incorporate sustainable adventure tourism activities such as biking, rafting, wildlife viewing and horseback riding. In turn, the international guests will discuss how their land conservancy model works in Namibia and how it might work on reservations, public and private lands. The 10-day tour will wrap up in Bozeman with an American football game as guests of Montana State University.
Facilitating the Sept. 6-16 exchange with the World Wildlife Fund and others is Billings, MT-based Austin-Lehman Adventure (ALA).
Participants include ALA, Conservancy Development Support Services (CDSS), Namibian Association of Community Based Natural Resource Management Support Organizations (NACSO), including members of the Himba and Herrera tribes, World Wildlife Foundation (WWF), and award-winning safari operator Wilderness Safaris.
The foreign visitors will learn about adventure tourism, inclusive of such issues as client safety, security and liability, and sustainability as practiced by ALA.
In Yellowstone National Park they will learn from park officials as well as representatives of Xanterra Corporation, the largest US National Park concessionaire, about how they manage their environmental footprint, including management of such issues as clean water, sewage, solid waste, energy and wildlife.
Cross-cultural exchanges between the Namibians and Native American tribal leaders from southeast Montana will delve into how to establish and operate indigenous tourism experiences, while Montana state officials will discuss how to establish and manage a dedicated fund to support small and medium tourism enterprises.
Namibia is the only country in Africa where black rhinos are being translocated out of a national park to communal conservancy land areas, in stark and dramatic contrast to the poaching taking place in neighboring countries. Its free-roaming lion population is expanding thanks to a dramatic decrease in poaching.
As the country repeatedly undertakes the largest road-based wildlife count in the world, its conservation success stories stand out in sharp contrast to most African countries where wildlife populations and habitats are rapidly declining.
Austin Lehman Adventures, www.austinlehman.com