BORANA
Visitors to Borana can enjoy magnificent views of Mount Kenya and horseback safaris with an easy conscience. This exclusive retreat’s eight luxurious cottages are furnished with huge open fireplaces and scenic verandas, and located on a 13,000-hectare working cattle ranch that underwent a conversion to wildlife conservation and ecotourism in the early 1990s. Careful wildlife management has nurtured abundant herds of elephants and giraffe while its owners, the Dyers, use clients’ money to support local community initiatives. These include classroom building, a mobile clinic, as well as irrigation and reforestation projects. Borana was awarded Virgin Holiday’s Responsible Tourism Award for Poverty Reduction in 2007.
Michael Dyer and his younger brothers are at the forefront of a radical re-thinking of attitudes towards land use, wildlife and the black community. Where sheep and cattle ranching were once pre-eminent, game animals were shot as pests and for sport, and Africans were, at best, treated with feudal paternalism, now tourism is the cash cow, conservation is the new creed and the Dyers’ Masai and Meru neighbours are getting a share of the action.
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Staying at Borana is wonderful for the beauty, the variety and the high concentration of animals, but adding to the experience is the fact that a stay will benefit the local community both indirectly and directly.
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