Behind the Scenes with Air Safaris 269
Following a successful career as a commercial airline pilot, JC De Klerk returned to Africa with a mission to make his home country of Namibia more welcoming to vegan travellers.
Lisa talks with JC about taking vegans to see the wonders of Africa by light aircraft.
Learn more at www.airsafaris269.com
Few African countries appear on the top lists of vegan-friendly travel destinations. So why did you choose Namibia specifically as a vegan holiday destination?
I was born and grew up in Namibia on a cattle farm. From a very young age, I always wanted to be involved in some form of conservation and while walking amongst our cattle I imagined that I was flying amongst a herd of buffalo. Flying was always part of the dream! My first charter pilot job was flying tourists around Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia but my flying career took me all the way to the east where I became an airline pilot based in Singapore. However, I always stayed in touch with the safari industry and established a consultancy business putting safari packages together for the Asian travellers and the expat community.
After 16 years we returned to Africa and are now based in Cape Town which is the Vegan capital of Africa. My aim is to originate or end all tours in Cape Town. I maintained my strong network though because I think Namibia is just a very special place to visit. It has so many unique areas and is still considered one of the most sparsely populated African countries, meaning it still has that raw African beauty. It has a combination of amazing scenes and wild animals still roaming in their natural habitat and I want guests to join our tours so that I can show them all my favourite places.
Namibia is still a very meat loving country but is more affordable for the average traveller compared to other African destinations. I am a vegan, I am from Namibia and I know what is possible so I coordinate with the lodges in advance by making sure that your needs are met. Namibia wants to welcome the vegan traveller but needs assistance from someone like me on the ground.
Once someone has seen wild animals in their natural environment, do you find this then makes them respect all animals more or do they simply not make the link?
Sadly, most non-vegans going on safari do not make that link. I would like to believe that everybody that comes on safari has an inherent love of animals, that they appreciate and admire the wild animals in their natural habitat, but after a day of watching these beautiful animals in their natural habitat they then arrive at the dinner table starving and find the very animals they saw in the wild now on the menu. Sadly, the food is seen as produce rather than linking to where it came from.
After spending 16 years working as an airline pilot, how easy has the transformation from commercial pilot to tour guide been?
It has been very easy although I had to get used to flying small light aircraft again instead of airliners! But this is real flying. Airliners have become very automated over the years, flying low over the African plains gives you such an appreciation of this amazing continent. Having guests on the aircraft who I can talk to while flying is just such a privilege. I can see in real time how much people enjoy the adventure of flying on safari.
Safari guiding comes very naturally to me. Having grown up in Namibia as well as having completed a safari guiding certificate course before I became a pilot, it was like getting back on a bike. I’m now doing what I always wanted to do which is to show people this amazing part the world.
When you come on safari to Africa you are supporting communities in a very deep way. For example, most of the staff working on the lodges support entire families.
What other challenges have you found organising vegan travel experiences in Africa – apart from ensuring access to good vegan food obviously!
The lodges in Namibia do find it hard to understand why I want to introduce vegans to Africa. I actually got told, “why market Africa and Namibia as vegan friendly, we are a meat-loving country and we want people experience that!” but the ‘veto vote’ in a group or family will soon become the norm. The more lodges and establishments change to accommodate that one family member or one person in a group, then the more people will want to come. The opposite is also true, that if they do not change, the guests and travellers will go where the ‘one’ can be accommodated.
There’s also no hiding that when vegans come on safari they are hit with the non-vegan décor of the average African lodge, such as trophies on the wall, animal skins on the floor, leather couches. But the lodges, staff and guides need to come to the realisation that veganism will become mainstream and become a force to reckon with, so they need to start thinking about the details of making it easy for vegans to want to visit. My marketing is focused on nurturing the relationship with vegans all around the world and to be patient and concentrate on the long road to build the movement in Africa.
The local businesses and communities that you work with are reliant on the travel industry. How have you been able to educate them on the need to cater for people who only eat plants?
When you come on safari to Africa you are supporting communities in a very deep way. For example, most of the staff working on the lodges support entire families. You have industries attached to the tourist industry that provide jobs. So yes, there is a whole chain reaction the moment you spend your tourist money.
What is so amazing is that folk that live in the rural areas of Africa already eat mostly plants. Many of these families don’t have fridges and freezers to store meat for a long time, however most of these communities have a vegetable garden. I’m working with these communities to offer a home cooked vegan meal as part of a cultural visit while staying at a lodge.
There is still an ignorance about the cruelty of killing animals in Africa. Many of us grew up with slaughtering from a very young age. It is almost a right of passage. If you grew up on an African farm, you inevitably were exposed to killing some animal either through hunting or as part of livestock farming meaning the average person in Africa does not understand veganism. Before guests arrive for their safari, we work with the lodges in advance to make sure they can cater correctly. My wife is a qualified vegan hospitality consultant, so she assists lodges to ‘get veganised’ including working on their menu development, providing vegan friendly décor and training the staff to understand the needs of a vegan guest.
We want vegans to have a real culinary experience while on safari, which means that if lodges don’t step up then they will lose out to the lodges that do. It’s an educational exercise, but it’s fun and great to see when a lodge gets it right and how much they embrace it. The more vegans come to Africa, the more they are part of the change.
International travel has been heavily under the spotlight in recent years for its environmental impact. Is it possible to holiday sustainably?
Travelling internationally, you must get on a plane and sadly that’s one of the biggest contributing factors to global warming. But technology is moving fast in the aviation industry and I can see us flying on electric planes in the very near future. Until such time, we vegans are already reducing our carbon footprint with our diet. I believe we can holiday sustainably and as vegans we already are. Vegans are forcing awareness. We are not just talking we are actually doing our part and making a stand.
Learn more at: www.airsafaris269.com
Lisa Fox says:
In business, solving the problem that others find hard to solve gives you a real competitive edge. By working with the safari lodges and local communities to help them understand the vegan traveller, JC has not just solved a problem, he’s forging a whole new industry for his business.
