Good practice:

Developing a cross-border safari in the Netherlands and Belgium

In the Wildlife Economy project we organized a webinar with the Knepp region in England. One of the best practices discussed in this webinar was organizing safari tours through the Rewilding area. They are very successful with this and generate considerable income per year. This income is in turn used to manage and develop nature.
Knepp Safaris

This example from Knepp has inspired Regional Landscape and Maasland (RLKM) and the Province of Limburg to develop a safari within the Wildlife Economy project. In this project we work closely with partner Rewilding Europe, which is developing areas according to the Wildlife Economy philosophy, whereby part of the income flows back to nature.

To introduce tourists to Rewilding areas, Rewilding Europe has set up the European Safari Company that organizes safaris to experience the Rewilding areas in a unique way close to nature with specially trained guides. This is how generated the idea to develop our own safari for the cross-border nature areas Rivierpark Maasvallei and Kempen-Broek a collaboration with European Safari Company, RLKM and lead partner the Province of Limburg. Part of the income will flow back to nature.

We also shared this businessmodel of the European Safari company in a peer-to-peer meeting that we organized with the partners and their stakeholders.

The partners have to spent time to set up the programme for the safari and visit the regions. And the region has to find/train a tourgide for this safari.
While European Safari Company is part of Rewilding Europe we didn't have to pay a fee to develop the safari.

It's a unique crossborder safari we have developed with tree partners without making a lot of costs. Each organization has invested his own hours to develop this safari. The tour can be booked now.

As a result of the Corona measures we had some delay in developing the safari because visiting the area was difficult because of travel restrictions.

We think that this is an interesting businesscase for other regions to develop their own safari tours with a trained guide where a part of the income is invested back in nature(projects) again. It's import to set up a collaboration with a travel organization, the local community and nature organizations.