When Great Plains Conservation acquired the lease for the 118,000-hectare private Sapi Reserve in Zimbabwe – land that was previously used for hunting – we determined that the only way for us to rehabilitate the land, increase wildlife numbers and improve the guest safari experience was to follow what we did successfully in the Selinda Reserve of northern Botswana.
Like Selinda we obviously closed the Sapi to hunting as the first order of business and then established a light ‘footprint’ with our Greater Mana Expedition program. This was not only to secure the area from poaching but also to start building trust with the wildlife by having guests moving around the area.
We are pleased to say that this has been such an amazing and rapid success that we are now moving to the next phase in Sapi’s development. For this upcoming season (starting May 2019) where we are consolidating two of our mobile camps originally included in the Greater Mana Expedition and upgrading them to the Great Plains ‘Explorers’ style camps you know well from Botswana and Kenya. Starting this season there will be two camps available for guests – one, the Sapi Explorers Camp (on the Zambezi River) and the second our skybed camp will be upgraded and called Sapi Springs Camp (deep in the interior of the reserve, overlooking a spring on the ephemeral Sapi River).
We are excited that the now discontinued 6-night Greater Mana Expedition served its purpose well for us and that the new Sapi Explorers and Sapi Springs camps will be open for FIT business as opposed to only being available on fixed departures.
For those with existing bookings on our Greater Mana Expedition, your guests will be upgraded without cost to the new experience being accommodated at the Sapi Explorers Camp and Sapi Springs Camp, which are designed to perfectly complement each other.
Read More: https://mailchi.mp/greatplainsconservation/sapireserve-1699325
Questions? Contact sarah@greatplainsconservation.com
