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We offer two options for arranging your private, customized Zimbabwe safari!

Natural Habitat has been crafting private, custom Botswana safaris for travelers from around the world for nearly three decades. Arranged by our professional adventure staff, which has an average of 14 years’ experience, these safaris range from 6 days to several months in length. Please call us at 1-800-543-8917 to speak with an Adventure Specialist.	iSafari is a custom safari reference and planning website. Research countries, wildlife, national parks and hundreds of lodges & camps. Build your own personalized safari, create a journal, share it, and send your handcrafted itinerary to us. Nat Hab's safari specialists will then work with you to perfect it! Visit iSafari.com

We offer two options for arranging your private, customized Zambia safari!

Natural Habitat has been crafting private, custom Botswana safaris for travelers from around the world for nearly three decades. Arranged by our professional adventure staff, which has an average of 14 years’ experience, these safaris range from 6 days to several months in length. Please call us at 1-800-543-8917 to speak with an Adventure Specialist.	iSafari is a custom safari reference and planning website. Research countries, wildlife, national parks and hundreds of lodges & camps. Build your own personalized safari, create a journal, share it, and send your handcrafted itinerary to us. Nat Hab's safari specialists will then work with you to perfect it! Visit iSafari.com

We offer two options for arranging your private, customized Namibia safari!

Natural Habitat has been crafting private, custom Botswana safaris for travelers from around the world for nearly three decades. Arranged by our professional adventure staff, which has an average of 14 years’ experience, these safaris range from 6 days to several months in length. Please call us at 1-800-543-8917 to speak with an Adventure Specialist.	iSafari is a custom safari reference and planning website. Research countries, wildlife, national parks and hundreds of lodges & camps. Build your own personalized safari, create a journal, share it, and send your handcrafted itinerary to us. Nat Hab's safari specialists will then work with you to perfect it! Visit iSafari.com

We offer two options for arranging your private, customized Uganda safari!

Natural Habitat has been crafting private, custom Botswana safaris for travelers from around the world for nearly three decades. Arranged by our professional adventure staff, which has an average of 14 years’ experience, these safaris range from 6 days to several months in length. Please call us at 1-800-543-8917 to speak with an Adventure Specialist.	iSafari is a custom safari reference and planning website. Research countries, wildlife, national parks and hundreds of lodges & camps. Build your own personalized safari, create a journal, share it, and send your handcrafted itinerary to us. Nat Hab's safari specialists will then work with you to perfect it! Visit iSafari.com

We offer two options for arranging your private, customized Rwanda safari!

Natural Habitat has been crafting private, custom Botswana safaris for travelers from around the world for nearly three decades. Arranged by our professional adventure staff, which has an average of 14 years’ experience, these safaris range from 6 days to several months in length. Please call us at 1-800-543-8917 to speak with an Adventure Specialist.	iSafari is a custom safari reference and planning website. Research countries, wildlife, national parks and hundreds of lodges & camps. Build your own personalized safari, create a journal, share it, and send your handcrafted itinerary to us. Nat Hab's safari specialists will then work with you to perfect it! Visit iSafari.com

A Lifetime Behind the Lens and In Front of the Animals

After an extensive career in German television and film, plus a business in the IT sector, photographer Michael Poliza began focusing on digital media in 1997. His adventures led him to turn his attention to the game reserves and nature parks of southern Africa. Thanks to a friendship with Wilderness Safaris, he had freedom of access in return for the use of his images – a truly symbiotic relationship that saw the development of a significant body of wildlife and landscape imagery. The resultant book, Africa, was launched to massive acclaim in 2006.

Since then, he has continued to photograph some of the most breathtaking views of nature, including the beauty and fragility of polar life in his coffee table book Antarctic, and aerial views of the entire African continent and its wildlife in Eyes Over Africa.  In December 2009 he was named as an ambassador of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Visit Michael Poliza’s website to learn more.

How a Map Changed Belize's Fate

To change the fate of a country, Gregg Verutes drew a map.

As a specialist in mapping, Gregg Verutes never expected his work to translate quickly and dramatically into conservation victories on the ground.

But one map he created had stark and immediate impact. The map of Belize’s coast overlaid with a black patch the size and shape of the Gulf Coast oil spill showed Belizeans just what was at stake in an upcoming referendum on whether to allow further oil exploration and drilling in coastal waters. 95 percent of voters cast ballots against the oil concession in the referendum.

The maps he constructs using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for WWF’s Conservation Science Program are science-based depictions of nature’s value that guide conservation priorities and inform policymaking.

“In Belize, using cutting-edge tools and approaches has been instrumental in helping people understand the consequences of their actions,” Verutes explained. “Everybody wants to make a living, to increase their livelihoods. We are helping them understand the value of nature and what the environmental and development consequences are from the multitude of human uses occurring in and around the coastal zone.”

In WWF’s broader work in Belize, the team is helping the government create an integrated coastal zone management plan. Gregg says that conserving nature offers protection from storm surges, abundant fish for food, and pristine beaches and charismatic wildlife to attract tourists. These make those natural resources valuable to the citizens of Belize.

Gregg uses scientific tools to help people understand the benefits they get from nature and the impacts of their actions, empowering them to make more sustainable decisions.

“Science is the cornerstone of how we can communicate nature’s value, and enable people to act differently,” he said. “Science can guide a better management strategy to sustain nature’s benefits to people well into the future.”

With his research, Gregg Verutes and WWF are mapping a sustainable future for Belize.

See the path that monarch butterflies take on their annual migration. © WWF

How Mexico is Protecting Monarchs from Unsustainable Logging

Every year, monarch butterflies take one of the most amazing migrations on Earth. Fluttering between 1,200 to 2,800 miles over the course of two months, they leave their summer breeding areas in Canada and the United States to return to hibernation colonies in the forests of central Mexico.

These same forests are inhabited and managed by agrarian communities. Local landownership is divided between ejidos (communal forestry and agriculture endeavors), indigenous communities, and small property owners. As the communities struggle with widespread poverty and lack of employment opportunity, they lean heavily on the forest and its resources for survival—the same forests in which the monarchs congregate.

To protect the area from unsustainable logging that threatens the butterflies’ unique habitat, the Mexican government took action. The Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve was established, and later expanded with WWF support.

To assist local communities in keeping the forest intact, WWF helps establish alternative income-generating ventures—including sustainable mushroom and tree nurseries.

Today, nine mushroom nurseries provide protein to local households and income from sales. Mushroom producers have access to seeds, bio-material, and training with financial support from the Mexican government and WWF, and participation of local scientists. They learn cultivation techniques, administration processes, and how to manage the facilities’ equipment.

At the same time, 10 tree nurseries now produce around 1.5 million native trees every year for reforestation of local areas, with income supporting many full- and part-time jobs. WWF forest engineers help with the work of growing trees—including seed planting, bagging and plant location, installing irrigation systems, and managing administrative tasks.

For the communities involved in these endeavors there is a new appreciation of the forest they call home—and a change of conscience about how to use the forest in a sustainable way. Sustainable forest management can ensure their communities’ continued wellbeing—as well as the winter habitat of the butterflies that make their area so unique.

“It’s not only protecting the monarchs, it’s not only protecting the forest, but it’s helping the local communities develop in an economic and social way. Without their participation, without their commitment, we cannot move forward,” says Eduardo Rendón-Salinas, head of WWF-Mexico’s Monarch Butterfly Program.

Measures Taken to Prevent Illegal Trading and Killing of Great Apes

Governments at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) agreed to develop a comprehensive reporting mechanism on the illegal killing and trade of great apes.

According to the United Nations Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP) Stolen Apes report, launched at the CITES meeting, 22,218 great apes were taken from the wild between 2005 and 2011 to be traded illegally on international markets, primarily for the pet trade.

WWF believes that the real number of apes killed and traded is double or even triple this figure, due to the larger, more influential and significant bushmeat trade. Especially in Central Africa, ape meat is still a sought after commodity for mid-high level socio-political functions.

Measures needed to ensure the conservation of African great apes include implementation of existing legislation, strengthened enforcement controls including anti-poaching measures, market survey and control, and anti-smuggling measures at international borders, meanwhile eliminating the widespread corruption which blocks the legal system and facilitates illegal trade.

Although there are recent exceptions, range state governments do not regularly reinforce the ongoing work of anti-poaching teams. According to WWF, well patrolled protected areas, with demonstrated cases of imprisonment of illegal wildlife traders, offers the best chance of securing African great apes in the wild.

Most of the apes captured for the pet trade are infants, the preferred bounty for poachers. But adult apes are not willingly letting their young go, and often defend their families to the death.

Great ape populations in Africa often share their habitat with civil wars, illegal logging and the expansion of agriculture and other industrial activities which threaten their habitat. Conservation efforts are also threatened by highly infectious diseases which can kill vast numbers of great apes in single outbreaks.

TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, has supported work to mitigate the effect of illegal meat trade on apes in Central Africa.

“Illegal domestic and international trade in great apes and their parts continues to have a strong detrimental effect on the survival of wild orangutans, gorillas and chimpanzees,” said Roland Melisch, TRAFFIC’s Director for Africa and Europe.

Swimming with Sharks, Lessening the Impacts

Gentle giants. That’s what pops into my head each time I think about being in the water, swimming alongside a whale shark. The first time I did it, it was the experience of a lifetime: Swimming six feet away from one of these gargantuan creatures, looking directly into his eye, kicking with all my might to keep up with him as he skimmed the surface of the plankton-rich water with his mouth wide open.

I’m not sure what it is about being so near a creature so large; on the one hand, thrilling, and on the other hand, a palpable sense of calm. When I returned this past summer, I had the chance to swim with a “youngster” – only about 15 feet long; much easier to keep up with. We also had the special treat of spotting several large schools of golden rays, glittering as the sun bounced off them on the swells

WWF got involved with the small fishing community of Holbox on the northern coast of the Yucutan Peninsula about five years ago when the region began its transformation from a shark-fishing village to a premier whale shark watching destination. When the shark fisheries began to decline, the fishermen started taking tourists out to see the whale sharks and asked WWF for help developing a code of conduct for the swim-with-a-whale outings. Some of the guides were letting people ride the sharks and—no surprise—the sharks were making themselves scarce.

With the help of experts—and from learning about whale shark watching experiences in Belize, Honduras and Australia—the fishermen drew up a list of practices that would constitute a high-quality experience for the guests with less impact on the sharks.

At issue now is the competition from less conscientious operators from Cancún and beyond. WWF conducted an analysis of the business model used by the local operators, with the goal of keeping the shark-watching business healthy as an incentive for protecting the whale sharks and their habitat. We’re also interested in learning more about the whale sharks’ habits, and so we’ve been working closely with Mexico’s National Park agency and have provided funding for satellite tags to track the movements of the sharks, which will help identify habitat in need of additional protection. Two of the sharks are now outfitted with the tags and the researchers have begun tracking them.

- Gina DeFerrari, WWF Senior Policy Advisor

Working to Protect the Galapagos Islands

If you landed in the Galapagos Islands a century or two ago, you would see giant tortoises lumbering across grassy fields, marine iguanas by the hundreds sprawled on rocks and sea lions cooling off at the water’s edge.

It sounds, in fact, exactly what you’d still witness there in the 21st century. Except today, there’s a new influential species that has invaded the islands: the human being.

The Galapagos archipelago was once a virtually untouched oasis with no human inhabitants. In the 1920s, European and North American settlers began to arrive, as well as Ecuadorians who came to fish and farm. The human population has grown from roughly 3,000 in the 1960s to about 30,000 in 2012. In addition to residents, more than 160,000 tourists visit the Galapagos each year.

WWF has worked in the Galapagos for more than 50 years , launching its work in the islands with the Charles Darwin Research Station, which you’ll visit on NHA’s tour.

Here’s a list of some of WWF’s other current initiatives in the Galapagos:

Waste management
Increased human activity results in an increased demand on ecosystems. This is an especially big challenge in the Galapagos. Litter and other poorly managed waste easily becomes marine debris, resulting in, among other things, the death of animals that become entangled in pieces of string or plastic bags or that consume floating trash.

WWF is working to create a successful waste management and recycling system on the inhabited islands. Currently the organization is helping to construct a new type of landfill on Santa Cruz that will offer environmentally safe disposal of solid waste. Another important component of WWF’s work is to create a culture of responsible consumption by educating local communities on the need to reduce waste and recycle.

Enforcing laws
In 1998, WWF helped establish the 50,000-square-mile Galapagos Marine Reserve. Since then, the Galapagos National Park has struggled to enforce the law that protects the reserve from harmful fishing activity. Park managers were faced with high operating costs and inadequate resources to patrol the large marine reserve.

With key partners, WWF has helped create more efficient ways to monitor vessels in the marine reserve, using such technology as satellite, radio and radars. These systems help detect illegal fishing activities and minimize the risk of vessel accidents, which could lead to oil spills. The organization also supports training park wardens on how to use these technologies.

Illegal fishing
The Galapagos Marine Reserve’s diversity of marine life makes it attractive to illegal fishing interests. As a result, almost all of the Galapagos’ commercially important coastal species are being overfished. Overfishing destroys marine environments and hurts communities that depend on the fish. WWF collaborates with fishing communities to embrace sustainable practices that protect the fishing industry and the marine ecosystems.

Sustainable tourism support
Worldwide fame has turned the Galapagos Islands into one of the most popular tourist destinations on the planet. More tourists means a bigger demand for tourism and hospitality employees, which grows permanent or seasonal populations on some islands. It also leads to a higher demand for imported goods and fossil fuels.

WWF wants to ensure that tours like yours become a tool for conservation and sustainable development. WWF helps the Galapagos design and implement business models that both support conservation and improve people’s livelihoods. This is done through collaboration with partners, governments and communities. WWF is intently working on reducing the ecological footprint caused by the industry and visitors.

WWF Works to Save Polar Bears in the Arctic

Three researchers exit from a helicopter onto the sea ice of Arctic Canada and approach the lifeless polar bear. He’s not dead, just sedated from a dart gun the researchers shot from the air. They have an hour before he begins to wake up. They move quickly.

First they measure length and—with the help of a fold-up tripod, a net and an engine hoist—weight. Next they collect biological samples: a vestigial tooth, which helps determine age, along with blood, serum, hair, fat and feces to identify any toxic contamination. Then the researchers paint a big number on the bear’s back with temporary, biodegradable fur dye, so that he can be identified from the air in the near-future, and they give him an ear tag or radio collar so that he can be identified in the years to come.

Polar bears are not currently endangered—20 – 25,000 live in the wild—but the species’ future is far from certain. As a result of climate change, sea ice in the Arctic is melting earlier in the spring and forming later in the autumn, leaving the bears with less time on the ice to hunt for food to build up their fat reserves, and more time fasting on land.

Studies suggest that two-thirds of the world’s polar bear population could be gone by 2050. And if current warming trends continue unabated, WWF scientists and other researchers believe that polar bears may disappear altogether within 100 years. WWF is intent on preventing this from happening.

The organization and its partners are working to understand the impact of different threats. In addition to climate change, oil and gas development is a concern. By tracking polar bears, scientists can map a polar bear's range and examine how habitat use may alter over time in response to changes in the sea ice. Over time this information reveals changes and adaptations. WWF also provides funding for polar bear researchers to travel to Russia and the U.S. to share and exchange scientific information about polar bears with other researchers.

As climate change forces polar bears to spend longer time onshore, they come in contact more often with Arctic communities. WWF is working to make sure these interactions do not end badly for humans or the bears.

Scientists believe that a natural “safety net” of ice in the High Arctic of Canada and Greenland, ice covering 500,000 square miles, or twice the size of Texas, may persist longer than the ice anywhere else. WWF and its partners are working to preserve this region while simultaneously negotiating with governments, businesses and individuals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change.

We offer two options for arranging your private, customized Botswana safari!

Natural Habitat has been crafting private, custom Botswana safaris for travelers from around the world for nearly three decades. Arranged by our professional adventure staff, which has an average of 14 years’ experience, these safaris range from 6 days to several months in length. Please call us at 1-800-543-8917 to speak with an Adventure Specialist.	iSafari is a custom safari reference and planning website. Research countries, wildlife, national parks and hundreds of lodges & camps. Build your own personalized safari, create a journal, share it, and send your handcrafted itinerary to us. Nat Hab's safari specialists will then work with you to perfect it! Visit iSafari.com

We offer two options for arranging your private, customized Kenya safari!

Natural Habitat has been crafting private, custom Botswana safaris for travelers from around the world for nearly three decades. Arranged by our professional adventure staff, which has an average of 14 years’ experience, these safaris range from 6 days to several months in length. Please call us at 1-800-543-8917 to speak with an Adventure Specialist.	iSafari is a custom safari reference and planning website. Research countries, wildlife, national parks and hundreds of lodges & camps. Build your own personalized safari, create a journal, share it, and send your handcrafted itinerary to us. Nat Hab's safari specialists will then work with you to perfect it! Visit iSafari.com

We offer two options for arranging your private, customized South Africa safari!

Natural Habitat has been crafting private, custom Botswana safaris for travelers from around the world for nearly three decades. Arranged by our professional adventure staff, which has an average of 14 years’ experience, these safaris range from 6 days to several months in length. Please call us at 1-800-543-8917 to speak with an Adventure Specialist.	iSafari is a custom safari reference and planning website. Research countries, wildlife, national parks and hundreds of lodges & camps. Build your own personalized safari, create a journal, share it, and send your handcrafted itinerary to us. Nat Hab's safari specialists will then work with you to perfect it! Visit iSafari.com

We offer two options for arranging your private, customized Tanzania safari!

Natural Habitat has been crafting private, custom Botswana safaris for travelers from around the world for nearly three decades. Arranged by our professional adventure staff, which has an average of 14 years’ experience, these safaris range from 6 days to several months in length. Please call us at 1-800-543-8917 to speak with an Adventure Specialist.	iSafari is a custom safari reference and planning website. Research countries, wildlife, national parks and hundreds of lodges & camps. Build your own personalized safari, create a journal, share it, and send your handcrafted itinerary to us. Nat Hab's safari specialists will then work with you to perfect it! Visit iSafari.com

So you’re interested in an extraordinary nature travel experience!? Sign up for our E-Newsletters – we’ll keep you up to date on new trips, special offers & more.

Our staff is based out of Nairobi, Kenya.  Welcome to our home base!  Learn more about our local office here.

Our weekly e-newsletter highlights exclusive offers, webinars, nature news, travel ideas, photography hints and more. Use the form below to submit your name and email address.

Our exclusive Quality & Value Guarantee gives our travelers the confidence to make their travel plans knowing that they will have their lofty expectations met and that the fees we charge reflect the quality of the experience provided on our trips.

1) We’ll Deliver on Our Promises:
We are so confident the quality of our trips will meet your expectations and our Expedition Leaders will provide you with the best possible nature travel experience, that should you be dissatisfied we’ll gladly give you credit towards a future trip. This is, to our knowledge, the best guarantee in the travel industry! Of course, expectations have to match what we've promised, but our standards are so high that we are happy to make this unique and exclusive guarantee.

2) The Best Trip at the Best Fare:
We don’t think any other company has comparable trips when you take into account our unique itineraries, stunning locations, small groups, and quality Expedition Leaders. But, should you come across a matching itinerary of our quality offered by a US-based company, even within 30 days AFTER booking with us, we will gladly refund the difference. This guarantee is designed to assure you that even though our trips are of the highest standard you will still not pay more than you have to for the very best nature-based expeditions.

3) Don’t Worry...We Won’t Cancel!
While other companies often cancel their trips due to low participation, we guarantee our scheduled departures! This means that we will never cancel a trip because of low enrollment, giving our travelers the unique ability to feel secure that their travel plans are guaranteed. If you've ever experienced the disappointment of having your long-anticipated vacation cancelled unnecessarily at the last minute, you’ll appreciate this important feature. This guarantee applies to all of our regularly scheduled Natural Habitat Adventures and Natural Habitat Photo Tours departures.

Eric’s role as NHA’s Head Naturalist not only allows him to lead a wide range of adventures around the world, but also to play an essential role in improving existing trips and developing new ones. His illustrious career began in Alaska in 1989, where he worked as a field researcher on many of the state’s diverse animal species, including river otters, waterfowl, moose and reindeer. He also served as the Head Naturalist at Kantishna Roadhouse Lodge in Denali National Park. His involvement in many of our North American destinations, including Alaska, British Columbia, Churchill, Canyons and Yosemite, has been integral to their continued success and popularity, and his participation in more exotic adventures, like Bhutan and Papua New Guinea, will undoubtedly serve to enhance travelers’ experiences in those areas as well. When not guiding for Natural Habitat, he works as a freelance documentary photographer. Eric’s knowledge, compassion and deep love of the natural world have a long and lasting impact on those who travel with him.