Many Africas is a page I started developing in 2017 when I taught in Malawi for a term.  Having once travelled and 'worked' across Southern and East Africa writing guidebooks, I wanted to highlight and promote best practice in the tourism sector, especially away from some of the major travel routes, in terms of conservation and whole-community uplift and involvement.  While it is true that there are 'vast tracts of untrammelled wilderness' (copyright travel marketeers everywhere) across the continent, it is also the case that populations are growing, and putting pressure on these areas for living space. While some place their faith in private philanthropy as the answer to conservation issues (and it does work amazingly if done right) I believe that conservation, tourism and development must go hand in hand if keystone species are to be preserved across as wide a range as possible. For this to happen, these animals and habitats must be cherished by locals too, if nothing else for the revenue they bring, although this is only the beginning. Witnessing a sense of communal 'guardianship' of a wild area is really something special. Examples of coexistence between people and megafauna abound, thanks sometimes to the work of local and international NGOs, but often simply to someone in love with a place trying to make a living from tourism, and depending on local infrastructure and people to make it happen. To my mind, some of the most interesting wildlife destinations on the continent are in these areas rather than the 'pristine' ones, whatever they are. Populations will grow, but it doesn't have to mean the end of wilderness. In the UK, where the last wild wolf was shot in 1742, I find it especially dispiriting when Malthusian voices rail against Africans for simply existing. 

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My focus, therefore, is lodges and other sites on community conservancies or reserve and national park areas, for example those run by the simply amazing African Parks, which disperse the greatest share of income, training and 'uplift' to a local workforce, and indeed tax system. There are many examples of this model, and they deserve your custom. Offshore value-extractors offering 'exclusivity' while hovering above the landscape and taking only what they need from it have been avoided in my coverage of Kenya, Zambia, Malawi and South Africa.