I get asked some really good questions about the ethics of these trips, and I always appreciate them. There is so much complexity here and for me it’s important to face this with integrity and not shy away from them. 

People often want to know how the bushmen benefit from the trips, and how much of the profit goes to them, which is a really important question. It’s important to note that we are a non-profit organisation, and our staff barely get more than their expenses covered to run the expeditions. This isn’t a Western model which lots of providers operate, whereby a company runs a trip somewhere, makes a profit and gives a token amount of it to the local community (if at all). In this scenario the local people often end up with very little other than a little employment in the safari lodges or wherever.

It’s worth explaining some of the background to this project. These trips are the latest incarnation of a collaboration that began in the mid 80s between Louis Liebenberg (Cybertracker Conservation) and the remote Ju/Hoansi communities which he got to know. The elders approached him to support them in different ways. Tracking The Kalahari is the current manifestation of fulfilling some of these aims. For a variety of reasons the tracking skills (and other skills and knowledge) which were such a part of their life ways were being lost and not passed down. So the elders wanted us to work with them in finding a solution to incentivising the young to take them up whilst also providing an economy based around these skills and giving value to them.

So in 2017 Cybertracker, in partnership with us (Tracking the Kalahari - previously The Old Way) developed a plan which had short, medium and long term aims. Short term was bringing groups out to these impoverished and marginalised communities and pouring thousands of pounds into them by paying the San for their services (taking us tracking, gathering plants, village camping fees, buying crafts, and much more). This provided a crucial income to a large number of families who have very little economic opportunities. They have a mixed economy of hunting gathering and employment where they can find it and so we would pay them in a week far far above what they would earn picking devil’s claw or whatever. The only employment opportunities available to these communities are collecting devils claw (a medicinal plant) or trophy hunting - and they need some financial income as their traditional lifeways are so undermined. 

In the medium term, we saw the young taking up the old tracking skills as they were now economically (and culturally) incentivised, and more trainees began passing through the project. But the long term aim is to help them become qualified through the Cybertracker accreditation process and therefore employable by the wildlife service department, national parks, safari lodges etc. Meanwhile Louis trained the trackers to be able to evaluate and accreditate the trackers themselves - we are always trying to reduce any sort of dependency on us. Right from the outset our main aim is to make ourselves obsolete.