andBeyond Lake Manyara Tree Lodge

Conservation of Africa’s wilderness areas is crucial to the survival of the animals that call them home. And it will be the youth of today that become the future advocates and custodians of these protected spaces. &Beyond and Wild Impact have developed the participative Echo environmental education program. Locally relevant content is integrated with an experiential safari, stimulating engagement with this next generation of conservationists. In the last two years, this program has supported over 1 600 lessons to 2 300 scholars within the Lake Manyara landscape.

In 2012, a presidential decree in Tanzania instructed all public schools to build fully-equipped science laboratories at their own cost – a mandate that posed a significant challenge for under-resourced rural communities. The Kilimamoja community raised enough for four walls and a roof, before leadership discussions with &Beyond and Wild Impact began. This led to the completion of three dedicated classrooms for Chemistry, Biology and Physics, each with the capacity for 45 students. The annual Uhuru torch race visited the school in 2017 to mark and celebrate the completion of these new facilities.

While Lake Manyara's landscape is a showcase of forest greens and scenic shores, within these surrounds there has been a marked increase of invasive alien vegetation. In a collaborative initiative between andBeyond, Wild Impact and the Tanzania National Park Authority (TANAPA), a Habitat Restoration project is in progress to restore the indigenous grasslands that once were known as Mahali Pa Nyati (place of the buffalo), bringing back migrating species such as wildebeest and zebra. In the areas cleared to date, a high visibility of wildlife has returned, including antelopes, elephant and lion.