… projects done
Community driven tourism
The Mamre Donkey Trail is a model tourism project that combines conservation with eco-tourism.
To book a trail now, please visit www.mamredonkeytrail.co.za
Above: The Mamre Donkey Trail combines job creation, public and private partnerships, local conservation efforts and rural tourism development
Touching the Earth Lightly TEL was contracted to scope, design and develop a project that would promote community-driven conservation of Mamre’s highly threatened vegetation by linking it to local tourism opportunities and job creation.
Many of the species that are found in the Mamre area occur here only and nowhere else in the world. The challenge is to combine the needs of conservation with the needs local, poor communities.
We beieve that for conservation efforts to be successful, they need to address equally the issues of job-creation and poverty alleviation if there is to be any hope of sustainability at all.
Normally, the conservation of threatened species is seen as an activity outside the realms of the tourism industry, but in this case, TEL wanted to link local people to conservation, through tourism.
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Above: Your accredited Mamre Donkey Trail guides look forward to meeting you!
TEL started a process of community consultation and arranged a series of workshops and meetings with Mamre residents who identified the opportunity for a guided, interpreted donkey-cart trail through the Town and its surrounds. Local felt that this should be a half-day excursion for Cape-Town based families, aimed at showcasing the natural, historical and cultural diversity of Mamre in a fun, character full way. It made sense to promote a fun, colorful, traditional, cost-efficient and energy-efficient mode of transport as donkey-drawn carts form the backbone of traditional transport in Mamre. Even today residents use donkey carts to collect fire-wood.
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Above: Enjoy a locally prepared lunch - the hand made, original and traditional flavors of Mamre
TEL has followed a simple, traditional approach - but one that speaks to the bigger-picture issues of biodiversity conservation and job-creation as well. For example, the wood used will be alien wood extracted from the local Mamre Renosterveld Nature Reserve.
All metal pieces have been recycled, and the timber the used for the donkey-cart is alien Pinus Pinaster . The emphasis is on simple, intelligent, low carbon-footprint design. In the end TEL and CREW hope to show that even a donkey-cart can demonstrate how humans can “touch the earth lightly”, using the platform of tourism as a stage on which to demonstrate this to families, children and visitors to the town of Mamre.
Above: The project is currently seeking funding for the building of it’s second donkey cart.
Above: A perfect picnic in the country - great for family outings from Cape Town
For more info visit:
Page 19 of http://www.sanbi.org/biodiversity/crew_feb2009.pdf and Donkey Trail in the media. For more information on the building of the new offices for The Mamre Donkey Trail, and its associate project “The Revitalization of Mamre” visit
http://www.ecodesignarchitects.co.za/eco/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=81&Itemid=2