New travel company launches: Africa without the Africans
April 1, 2025
© Fokke Baarssen via Pond5
A new travel company has launched today, offering stunning safari holidays with a guarantee of no Africans to spoil the view.
Colonial Holidays is a joint venture between exclusive tour operators and the conservation organizations WWF, WCS, The Nature Conservancy and African Parks.
Specially trained rangers will ensure that any locals who may intrude are either beaten up or arrested.
Colonial Holidays will offer safari tours to Kenya and Tanzania – both countries where, starting in the colonial era, Indigenous peoples have been swept aside to make way for wealthy outsiders.
Tourists will visit various national parks and game reserves, each one policed by battalions of heavily-armed rangers financed by the big Western conservation organizations.
Colonial Holidays’ CEO Weeno Best said today: “Many of the most popular safari destinations were once the home of Indigenous peoples. But no-one wants to look at people grazing cows, and their houses were a total eyesore. So we made sure they were evicted, and built luxury lodges and spa retreats instead.
“Our holidays come with a cast-iron guarantee for all our guests: As you sip your sunset cocktail, you’ll see nothing but a magnificent African wilderness: there’ll be absolutely no Africans to get in the way, or remind you that people once lived here.
“In fact, the only Africans you’ll see during your stay will be the cleaning staff and the waiters. Funnily enough, they’re the same people who used to live here, but they’re much happier now they’re in low-paid work with no job security, instead of self-sufficient and in control of their own lives.”
____________________________________________________________
This is, of course, an April Fool, but it has a serious purpose: to drive home the absurdity, racism and cruelty of how Indigenous peoples are treated in the name of conservation.
For the Maasai, Samburu and countless other Indigenous peoples around the world, their eviction to make way for tourists is not a joke, but rather their lived experience.
From Ngorongoro, to the Congo Basin, to the forests of India, Indigenous peoples are being ruthlessly persecuted and driven out to create Protected Areas like game reserves, national parks and tiger reserves.
“Some people might think this is funny, but it’s the reality faced by the Maasai. I hope this helps enlighten people to the model of conservation practiced on our lands.” Joseph Oleshangay, Maasai Human Rights Lawyer, Tanzania.
We’re fighting alongside Indigenous peoples to stop this. Indigenous people are the best conservationists – they and their rights must be at the centre of the fight against environmental destruction and climate change. Join the campaign.
