25 Years​ of Educational Adventures

Over the past 25 years Dorobo Safaris has been running educational based trips in northern Tanzania. Three brothers, Mike, Thad and Daudi, grew up in Tanzania and fell in love with the country’s people, wildlife and landscapes. They started Dorobo Tours & Safaris as a small, family-run business in the early 80’s, taking people out to experience and enjoy what the rich country of Tanzania has to offer. Since Dorobo’s beginning, it has based its travel concept on the philosophy that our natural environments (and wilderness and wildlife) are intimately and irrevocably linked to people - both locally and globally. Based on a sound natural sciences background and a thorough knowledge of the peoples of East Africa, Dorobo has designed wilderness travel for individuals and groups that provide stimulating educational experiences.

Seeing firsthand the changes, often negative, being placed on natural resources by the pressures of a growing and changing human population, Dorobo began to focus energy and resources into establishing partnerships and linkages with local communities whereby wildlife/wilderness for the first time became an economic option for them. From these agreements, we have nurtured long-term mutually beneficial relationships with many communities, from the Swahili coastal people to the Maasai (pastoralists), Hadzabe (hunter gatherers), and Iraqw (mixed farmers). We are thus able to offer privileged opportunities to learn about traditional cultures that dance to different tunes and to partake of a rich synergy of traditional and scientific knowledge as we interact with these traditional cultures that are still intimately connected to the earth.
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In addition to traditional livelihoods in the rural setting, urban Tanzania also has much to offer. Dorobo and its non-profit organization have been involved in projects such as organic farming, urbanization as it changes cultures, the issues of over-population and family planning, women’s rights, and health care. Through these connections, students can learn and engage in the issues faced by urban communities while providing positive impacts for those communities. Hand in hand is the possibility to get involved with service learning in the form of building schools and interactions with local education systems. Many of our programs work with local students to share and learn from each other in the form of projects and practical fieldwork.

Tanzania is famous for its savannah ecology that supports the largest diversity and density of megafauna on the planet. A combination of National Parks and conservation areas give students the chance to study this unique habitat and the complex interactions between all living and non-living aspects in the environment. These wilderness areas, however, do not sit in isolation and their conservation relies on complex interactions between land, people and wildlife. Conservation is a key point in many of our established programs where students can evaluate and look at various forms of protected area management such as National Parks, Game controlled areas and Wildlife Management Areas, and the complex underlying forces that influence them. The uniqueness of Tanzania, with all of its history, wildlife and rich culture has led to our involvement with many educational field programs with all ages of people.

​The experiences we provide remain rich and exciting, allowing students the chance to learn and engage hands on with some of the many complex aspects of what Tanzania and East Africa have to offer. We have many examples from past students that show the experiences provided by our programs are more than just school work, they can be life changing.

Traditional Livelihoods

With over 120 different ethnic groups, Tanzania is a hotspot for cultural diversity. These ethnic groups are split into four distinct groupings based on linguistics; the Nilotic who followed the Rift Valley down from around Sudan, the Cushitic who migrated from the Ethiopian highlands, the Bantu from West Africa and the Hadzabe who are believed to be a language isolate, having originated in Tanzania. Dorobo has long-term relationships with a variety of ethnic groups from Iraqw agro-pastoralists to Hadza hunter-gatherers. We offer an authentic, non- staged, source experience for our guests who visit these peoples.

​Dorobo’s long term connections and relationships based on mutually beneficial tourism agreements gives students the opportunity to study a diverse array of topics with each of these traditional groups.

Tropical Coastal Biology & Ecology 

From our base, we have access to all of the major tropical coastal habitats: coastal forests, mangrove forests, inter-tidal flats, seagrass beds, and coral reefs. These areas offer great opportunities for tropical coastal biology/ecology studies:

• Maziwe Marine Park lies about 9 km offshore. The Park has been well protected for about 2 years now and offers great snorkeling, diving and research opportunities. A pH meter was installed on the reef in October of 2013 to monitor long-term trends.
• Just South of Maziwe lies Fungu Zinga, an unprotected reef where traditional fishing methods are still practiced. This offers great opportunities for comparative studies with the protected reef of Maziwe.
• Within walking distance from the base location, a very successful green turtle nest relocation project has been operating for a few years now. The project relocates Green Turtle eggs from the Maziwe Marine Reserve to the Mainland.
• We have set up a weather station that automatically uploads data through a satellite connection every few hours, and has been collecting continuous data now for over 2 years.
• During Spring Tides, there is an intertidal zone with good tidal pools located right in front on our beach.
• Saadani National Park and Msumbugwe Forest Reserve are located a few hours’ drive away, and give good opportunities for studies on the flora and fauna of coastal forests plus conservation issues associated with these habitat types.

Marine Conservation

Growing populations are putting a lot of pressure on these coastal ecosystems and the challenges of conserving them are huge and complex. There are many possibilities for conservation studies:

• Meeting the demands of a growing population is leading to a lot of issues within the main coastal ecosystems, such as over-fishing/illegal fishing methods and Mangrove deforestation.
• Access to both a protected reef and a non-protected reef allow comparison of the drastic positive impacts conservation can have.
• Friends of Maziwe, a local organization, in collaboration with the village of Ushongo run a patrol team which is helping Marine Parks to enforce the no take status of Maziwe reef and also make sure visitors are paying the reserve fees. There are a lot of different issues that can be addressed here, from local stakeholder buy-in and involvement in conservation initiatives, to education of local communities on sustainability and importance of protected areas.

Cultural / Religious Studies

Coastal Tanzania has a long and rich history, influenced by trade and conquest from Vasco da Gama and the Portuguese to the Sultan of Oman and many other cultures. Options are numerous for various studies:

• Swahili culture of the coast – there are excellent opportunities for interactions with the local people including fishermen, farmers, and those living in an urban environment. Home stays can also be arranged, where students spend 1-4 nights with a family in the area.
•  Local activities, arts and crafts - E.g. Weaving, henna, basket making, harvesting coconuts
• With the majority of people on the coast practicing Islam, there are options for Islamic studies and its influence on the Swahili culture.
• Zanzibar is a few hours boat ride away and we can help facilitate excursions and stays on the island.
• We can organize visits/excursions together with some of the local primary/secondary schools in the area
•  The neighboring town of Pangani is an old historically important port that was involved in trade, including slavery. Cultural tours are possible, looking at the old slave cells and some of the town’s history.

The Terrestrial Environment 

From the ocean to the glaciers of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania has an extensive and diverse range of environments that provide the habitat for a stunning array of plants, mammals, birds, reptiles and insects. Hands on learning by studying different aspects of these environments while immersed in them is one of the best ways to get the most out of what is being taught. While Dorobo has the ability to teach general courses on ecology and biology, we can also help facilitate more specialized, higher-level courses. The ability to spend time immersed in the different environments also makes it possible to do more practical studies and research, and to conduct lab and field work. Some of the many subjects that can be covered in Tanzania include:
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• General Tropical Ecology - With arid to mesic tropical savannas, wetlands, ground water forests to highland forests and extensive miombo woodlands, each with their unique flora and fauna, there are diverse options for ecological studies.
• Mammalogy & Ethology - Tanzania has one of the highest concentrations and diversities of mammals in the world and opportunities to study them and their behavior in situ are countless.
• Ornithology - With over 1100 bird species, many endemics and migrants from around the world, Tanzania is a hotspot for bird diversity and a great place for ornithological studies.
• Botany - The plant communities associated with the biomes represented in Tanzania offer an incredibly diverse and broad scope for focusing on plants.
• Paleoanthropology - Evidence points to the Great Rift Valley and East Africa as being the “cradle-of-humankind”, and it is the environments and landscapes such as what we have in Tanzania that were probably very influential in defining who and what we are as humans today. Olduvai Gorge and some other sites can be visited to see first-hand some of the fossils and remains that give us clues about our evolutionary past.​
• Geography & Geology - The Great Rift Valley, running from Jordan down to Mozambique, runs through Tanzania. The geological processes associated with the fault-line that created the Rift Valley have created some of the most spectacular geographic features in the world, including one of the largest calderas (Ngorongoro Crater) and the highest free-standing mountain in the world (Kilimanjaro). They are also responsible for creating the Serengeti plains that support the largest migration of mammals on earth. Other geographic features include the Rift Valley lakes among the deepest and largest in the world, the active volcano Oldoinyo Lengai, and the soda-lakes with their associated communities of Flamingo.
• Photography - Combining the wildlife and geographical features of Tanzania gives you amazing opportunities to teach and perfect photographic skills.

Conservation Studies

The conservation of wildlife and natural environments in Tanzania is vital as it underpins a tourism industry generating over 1.9 billion USD, the largest foreign exchange earner for the country. Approximately 28 per cent of Tanzania’s land area is under some sort of protected status, including 16 national parks, 29 game reserves, 40 controlled conservation areas, forest reserves and marine parks. Wildlife can be found across 40% of the country, much of which is still community land where people and wildlife co-exist. With a growing population and pressures from different land and natural resource uses, the issues associated with conservation are myriad and complex.

National Parks:
The 16 National Parks in Tanzania have been set aside by the government with the idea to conserve intact ecosystems for visitors to utilize for inspirational, educational, cultural, and recreational purposes. While the National Parks have preserved important areas and have been very successful in conserving wildlife, some of the conservation issues associated with them include:

• Impact of tourism on the ecology of the ecosystems (road development, lodges, vehicles etc.)
• Pressure from communities residing near park boundaries results in multiple human/wildlife conflicts, poaching, livestock grazing on park land, deforestation etc.
• Many of the National Parks only protect a small portion of the wider ecosystem that the wildlife rely on, and are thus influenced by powers outside of their direct control.
• Historical context: A number of ethnic groups, such as the Maasai, have lost access to traditional and important areas which now lie within National Park boundaries. This has given many communities a negative perception of conservation, hindering further conservation efforts in unprotected areas.

Wildlife Management areas and Game controlled areas:
Wildlife Management Areas and Game Controlled Areas are often located adjacent to National Parks and are designed to act as buffers from the rapid development in rural Tanzania. These areas have multiple stakeholders, from the local people living on the land to the Government and foreign NGOs. Through long-term business and personal relationships with many of the communities in these areas, we can provide great opportunities to engage hands-on with many of the complex issues associated with these conservation areas, including:

• Different, often conflicting, natural resource and land use agendas from different stakeholders, such as hunting vs. photographic tourism and conservation vs. farming/mining.
•  Changing traditional livelihoods as rural communities become more engaged in the national and international market places, and are influenced by globalization.
• Outside influences as large agricultural firms penetrate farther into rural areas and people immigrate from outside areas.
• Pressure from increasing populations, both within the communities and immigrants from other over-populated areas.

Community Based Conservation:
Dorobo’s philosophy is that our natural environments (and wilderness and wildlife) are intimately and irrevocably linked to people - both locally and globally. This philosophy has led Dorobo to be on the leading edge of Community-Based Conservation in Tanzania. Some of the initiatives Dorobo has been involved with include:

•  Formation of the Dorobo Fund for Tanzania, a non-profit corporation that is committed to empowering communities to actively and sustainably manage their natural resources, including wildlife and wilderness.
• The Ujamaa Community Resource Team (UCRT) is a team of dedicated Tanzanians supported by the Dorobo Fund. They address the problems arising from the pressures of developing Africa and the effects on its people, environment and wildlife. The goal is to help communities living in wilderness areas take charge of their natural resources and to empower them to save and protect endangered treasures for future generations.
• Spearheading the establishment of a grazing easement on the Simanjiro plains in Northern Tanzania. This easement protects important wildebeest and other large mammal species’ wet-season habitats that lie outside of Tarangire National Park. Maasai communities living on the plains agree to carry on traditional pastoral livelihoods, but no activities that damage habitat such as farming. In return, the communities get yearly compensation from tour operators and hotel managers that rely on the wildlife that utilize the plains.
• Business agreements with both Hadza hunter-gatherer communities and Maasai communities, where land is set aside for tourism and traditional livelihood use (no agriculture or charcoal burning). In exchange, the communities receive bed-night fees and annual concession fees, which go to the villages to which the land belongs, who then make decisions as to how the money is used.

Service Learning

Both rural and urban Tanzania lacks a lot of the basic amenities taken for granted in the more developed world. This includes everything from basic health care and water security to education. Service learning is a powerful way to help out local communities while also positively influencing the kids and individuals who are providing that help. Dorobo can help facilitate projects such as:

• Building School Infrastructure: Direct relationships between local schools and outside schools/groups can be organized, so that the visiting school/group works together with the local school to get something it needs done. This usually entails helping to build classrooms, toilets or libraries together with students from that school.
• Peer Learning and local School Interactions: Visiting students can link up with a fellow Tanzanian student from the same grade or age-set while studying a certain topic. In this way they are not only learning the topic, but helping each other and learning across cultures. Home-stays are often incorporated into these programs where the student spends a night or two with the family of the local student they have been paired with.
• Working with Orphanages: Visiting students can do anything from helping to build rooms to helping to teach the orphans, often depending on what the need of the particular orphanage is.