NAMIBIA: Tourism Will Save Lions

Visit Namibia. Here, sandstone-coloured mountains abut canyons and dunes and desert plains. For as far as the eye can see, everything is painted in rust and amber and clay.

The aptly-named Skeleton Coast is hardly conducive to spotting the so-called Big Five safari animals; the elephants and rhinos that live here don't look quite like the ones in South Africa or Tanzania. Wildlife here have adapted to deal with scarce desert resources, developing unique features that set them apart from their ilk.

But seeing a desert-adapted lion in Namibia is like seeing a Siberian tiger in China or a snow leopard in the Himalayas. It’s a rare feat that justifies the journey. Unlike conventional lions, their thick coats can withstand dramatic temperature swings, and they can survive without drinking water at all - they get all the hydration they need from their prey. According to several on-the-ground experts, only 150 are left in Namibia; based on estimates from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, that number was as high as 795 just 10 years ago. With such limited resources in the desert for humans and animals alike, both communities have encroached on each others' territories, creating conflicts that didn't exist before.

Little global awareness exists for these resilient creatures. So in honour of World Lion Day recently, the Smithsonian Channel aired a new documentary about five remaining lion cubs who were though to hold the key for future generations.

To ensure their survival, the so-called “five musketeers” were collared and monitored by Philip Stander, a conservationist who works in collaboration with Wilderness Safaris. He has been known to study the cubs’ every movement from a healthy distance; when they approach village livestock, he’s gone so far as to blast “annoying” music from his 4x4 to drive the lions away from harm. He’s also created educational initiatives to help farmers avoid human-wildlife conflict.

But Stander’s heroic efforts have fallen short. Two weeks ago, one of the lions preyed on a villager’s cattle and was shot to death; last week, three more were found poisoned nearby. In the span of just a few days, the five musketeers narrowed to just one.

Almost immediately, the last survivor, Tomakas, was translocated to the Palmwag Concession, near Wilderness Safaris’ Hoanib Camp. His protection - and that of the remaining desert lions - has become one of the direst conservation concerns anywhere.

If Tomakas is a symbol of hope for his species, his new home is a beacon for community-led conservation. Here, locals benefit directly from tourism; Wilderness Safaris leases its land from, and shares revenue with, three nearby villages, making them directly invested in conservation. Each visitor that arrives increases the value of the wildlife they’ve come to see. Where responsible travel exists, lion mortalities seem to decrease - the lions, it turns out, can bring more value to locals than even their cows can.

In other words: Tourism is probably the last chance for the desert-adapted lion. There are also desert-adapted elephants and rhino to consider. And with pioneering five-star camps opening up in some of the remotest corners of Namibia, it’s possible to help save much of it without compromising on comfort.

Where to stay: Hoanib Camp, mentioned above, is by far the best property in Namibia, and it just happens to be where you have the best chances at seeing Tomakas. You can plan a whole itinerary with Wilderness, which has five properties in Namibia, offering access to the salt pans of Etosha, the Skeleton Coast, and the red-dune-filled Sossovlei. You can also book stays at design-forward properties by AndBeyond or Namibia Exclusive, which offer comparable service and locations should availability be thin elsewhere. (Expect to pay roughly $2 000 per night at the top-tier safari lodges.)

If you’re flying in through Windhoek, spend a night at the lovely Olive Hotel - by far the city’s best stay. (Until it opened in 2012, hotel standards were not high.) Each of the seven suites was designed individually, with furnishings inspired by different regions of Namibia. There's no spa, but the rooms have deep soaking tubs - a perfect foil to dusty days in the bush.

What to see: Combine your stay with a few nights in Sossusvlei, the photogenic region on the southern tip of the Namib Desert, where you can travel by hot air balloon over dunes that feel as tall as skyscrapers. Then visit Damaraland, in the north, where desert-adapted rhinos run wild. You'll get bonus points if you make it to the Kunene River, where you can get a less arid outlook on Namibia, or cross over into Botswana for incredible wildlife sightings in the plentiful Okavango Delta.

Who to call: You can plan a bespoke trip with Abercrombie & Kent or Absolute Travel. (Trips can vary wildly in cost; you can spend $300 a day or $3 000 a day, depending on where you stay and how you'd like to get around, so offer up your budget and dates and have it planned accordingly.) Or get in touch with Chris Liebenberg, a travel adviser who specialises in planning trips to Namibia.

Where to donate: Chris Roche, chief marketing officer of Wilderness Safaris, is at the front lines of this cause. He recommends reaching out to the Desert Lion Trust and Desert Lion Conservation Foundation if you'd like to make a difference without leaving home.

NAMIBIA: Namibia's Skeleton Coast Is Most Pristine Place In Africa

Portuguese sailors called it the Gates of Hell.

Namibia's Bushmen speak of the land God made in anger.

From the air, the bleak shoreline of the Skeleton Coast looks wonderful -- a deep green sea, fringed with surf, breaks over a shore receding into infinite dunes.

From land, it's a different story.

The Benguela Current rushes in, urgent and strong, hurtling the chilling Atlantic into the fierce heat of the Namib.

Whale and seal skeletons from the former whaling industry still litter the coastline -- the source of the region's frightening name.

Humans have suffered, too -- the remains of ships wrecked on the hidden rocks offshore rust and crumble beside the animal bones.

Survivors didn't last long in this harsh environment.

Why, then, visit this brutal-sounding place?

Because its forbidding nature has left Namibia's Skeleton Coast one of the most pristine shorelines in the world.

It may be bleak, but it's beautiful.

The territory extends from just north of the city of Swakopmund to the Angolan border in northwest Namibia, taking in 500 kilometers of shoreline and 2 million hectares of dunes and gravel plains.

It forms a national park, divided by rivers.

The southern section runs between the Ugab and Hoanib Rivers, the north between the Hoanib and Kunene.

Independent travelers can apply for permits for day trips but only to the south -- and it's the northern extremes, the Skeleton Coast Wilderness, that most people want to see.

Visitors to the latter part of the park are restricted to around 800 a year to preserve the fragile environment.

Exclusive and expensive

The only way to reach the north is to join a fly-in safari -- an exclusive, if expensive, experience.

A typical four-day trip costs around $6,000 per person.

After flying to an inland camp, my guide, Bariar, and I reach the sea following a 200-kilometer drive through dune country.

We climb out of the Land Rover into a huge animal graveyard: seal skulls jumbled with turtles' rib cages and the colossal, bleached vertebrae of whales.

The wind shunts me from one set of remains to the next.

One ghoulish question suggests itself: "Are there human skeletons, too?"

"Of course!" Bariar shouts, his voice almost lost in the wind.

"It's the shore of a thousand shipwrecks."

One of the coast's best-known wrecks is a British liner, the Dunedin Star, beached by her master after hitting a reef (some say a U-boat) in the 1940s.

A tug, the Sir Charles Elliott, went to her aid but it sank, too.

An arch of whale bones marks the grave of the two crewmen who led the rescue attempt, trying in vain to secure a line from the ship to the shore.

Every now and then the wreck of their tug can be seen above the waves.

At Cape Frio, thousands of seals provide light relief. Their noise is deafening, their smell overwhelming, but their antics draw you in.

The surf is full of writhing bodies.

At the water's edge, the occasional rock twitches, rolls over and throws itself into the sea.

We follow the coastline for miles.

Ours are the only tire marks, soon to be erased by the sand.

Ghost crabs scuttle into the waves; terns swoop over the surf; a jackal flops, seemingly exhausted, onto the shore.

Little game

When it comes to watching wildlife, the Skeleton Coast isn't about big game.

Guides focus on small mammals, birds and insects and the stories of how they survive.

With ocean fogs the only moisture supply, creatures conserve what they can.

Black-backed jackals lick humidity from stones.

Desert beetles channel droplets along their backs and into their mouths.

Tok-tokkie beetles pair up, then climb on top of one another, taking it in turns to provide shade.

Without compass or Sat Nav, Bariar drives us on a convoluted route back into the desert.

He suggests I look out the window for "unexpected stones" -- indicators to turn left or right or double back a touch.

They're meant to keep vehicles on course and not flatten tracts of this delicate ecosystem.

We arrive at the legendary "roaring" dunes, climb to the top and slide down on our butts.

I know the fearsome rumble comes from air trapped between grains of sand, but I still glance up convinced there are low-flying jets overhead.

The next couple of days are spent hiking through gorges, tracking desert-adapted elephants and exploring a wilderness that never seems to end.

What looks like wasteland to me is, to the Himba people, home.

They're the last of Namibia's nomadic pastoralists: they grow nothing and eat only meat.

The women braid their hair and scrub their bodies with ocher to keep clean. Their skin gleams like polished copper in the sun.

One morning, we visit their camp.

The trip is laid on for tourists, but when it's over we head to the home of one of the guides on the tour.

His mother offers me a necklace of porcupine quills as young girls sit and smile.

Eventually they overcome their shyness and get up to sing.

As I leave, I notice a small boy, eyeing me from the top of a dune.

Keen to impress, he somersaults over the top and falls flat on his face in the sand.

He gets up, shakes himself down and laughs.

Even in this tough environment, the survivors find plenty of reasons to smile.