The wilderness of the Eastern Cape was never a prime safari destination, until Adrian Gardiner, a South African entrepreneur, decided to create a world-leading eco-adventure resort there. Jessica Bowen reports

Luxury travel is, it seems, becoming harder and harder to justify. No longer is it acceptable to go on holiday, without worrying about what effect you’re having on the wider world, especially if you’re travelling long haul. Even as you book your flight you’re asked how many trees you want to replant to compensate for your environmental sins. Travel now requires a conscience and making your trip mean something or going somewhere that really needs you is one way of legitimising your journey.

One such destination is Shamwari game reserve in the malaria free Eastern Cape of South Africa. Unlike most safari areas, twenty years ago this area was game free, commercially farmed land. Now it’s a conservation hotspot and to make this region’s grand ecological plan work, it needs and wants people to keep visiting.

Shamwari’s owner, Adrian Gardiner, who was already a leading South African hotelier by the time the reserve was conceived, refers half-jokingly to Shamwari as a ‘mistake’. He purchased his first farm of 1200ha (2500acres) in the Eastern Cape in 1989 as a family weekend retreat but after researching further about the history of the region he realised that it used to be an African wilderness, rich with game. Over a century of mismanagement had allowed it to become eroded, over-grazed and barren.

Gardiner’s desire to restore the African landscape saw his private getaway grow over time to become a huge, varied landscape of 25,000 ha (55,000 acres), a space so big that even after eighteen hours of safari over three days, you only cover a fraction of the reserve. Indigenous animals were slowly reintroduced back to the area, with the help of one of South Africa’s leading conservationists, Dr Ian Player and Shamwari opened its doors to the public for the first time in 1992. It was not until 2000 that it came to fruition with the release of the prime predators, the lions, cheetahs, leopards and hyenas which had been poached to extinction in the area 150 years ago.

But how authentic can a safari experience be in a place with ‘restocked’ game? Accompanied by my ranger Geran, I drove out of Long Lee Manor, the old colonial farmhouse and hub of the reserve, into a landscape that was a world away from the flat, thorny bushveld of the Kruger, South Africa’s traditional safari zone on the other side of the country. Shamwari is situated in verdant bush along the Bushman’s River and offers vistas across green hills and valleys from bushbuckfilled plateaus. The soil is rich red with iron ore and when wet, the elephants that roll in it take on its rusty red hue and stand vivid against the lush vegetation. The Eastern Cape is one of the most diverse ecological regions in South Africa and Shamwari itself has a great variety of geography: you can be driving through a river one minute and climbing green hill the next.

‘One of the things I enjoy the most is the landscape,’ Geran told me. ‘There are very few reserves that have as much scenery and as many viewscapes as here. Most reserves are very ‘plain’ in that sense where here there are incredible viewpoints which give you great animal sightings from a distance. Black rhino sighting is particularly good and the elephants are very relaxed so they are also great for watching.’ Now that Shamwari is firmly established, it is not just a case of sitting back and relaxing while the visitors flow in. It looks like Adrain Gardiner’s gamble is paying off but the sustainability of the Shamwari ecosystem relies on a lot of behind the scenes work by resident wildlife veterinarians, ecologists, gap year volunteers and rangers in training who maintain anti-poaching controls, conduct game counts and track animals using telemetry.

The reserve has teamed up with the Born Free Foundation which seeks to recover wild animals from impoverished, captive environments and through education draw attention to an humane agenda. Shamwari has the only two Born Free Animal Rescue centres in South Africa, one in the north of the reserve and one in the south which are dedicated to providing long term care for rescued African cats. Among them are Sinbad the lion who was kept in a small enclosure in Romania and fed on pasta and Pitou and Sirius, two leopards who were originally part of a travelling circus and then residents of a cramped, private, royal zoo in Monaco before being given to the reserve by Prince Albert of Monaco. The wild will remain just that for most of the cats that come here as they are beyond learning the skills necessary to survive on their own but their massive enclosures which can been seen from viewing platforms at the sanctuaries, are within their natural habitat and are about as close to the wild as they can get in captivity.

The long-term sustainability of Shamwari relies not only on ecological and financial maintenance but also on social responsibility. Restoring this area to its original, wild state is no easy feat; Gardiner says South Africa was on the brink of civil war in the early days of Shamwari and all was very nearly lost. Furthermore, the local people have been, on the whole, unsupportive despite the success of the venture having a knock on effect, increasing the land prices of local farms. “As the venture became successful and the farmers’ land prices increased, they were obviously very happy, however to this day, they don’t acknowledge the contribution of Shamwari. Some neighbours still believe we are the breeding ground of predators like jackal and lynx that kill their livestock, but no one has ever reassessed their supposed losses against the increase in value of their land.” Gardiner doesn’t state the obvious: that the game in Shamwari were the original inhabitants, and man and his livestock the interlopers.

There is still great inequality in South Africa and the reserve has made it a priority to involve the local community with the majority of its employees coming from nearby towns and villages. In conjunction with the Born Free Foundation, the adjacent education centre teaches environmental education to over 700 school children a month who come from previously disadvantaged local communities as well as adults and children who visit the reserve on safari.

There is also the Wildlife Hospital which is currently home to Themba, a six month old elephant calf who was rejected from his herd at sister reserve, Sanbona after his mother died and, after much deliberation, was brought to Shamwari. He now lives a decadent lifestyle drinking the most expensive milk on the market, frolicking in a specially designed enclosure with playmate and bodyguard Albert, a sheep, and starring in documentaries produced by the Shamwari film unit. The plan is to re-release him when he finishes suckling at about six years old.

Beyond the hospital fences lie the 3,500 hectares which have been set aside for the breeding of rare animals such as the Cape Mountain Zebra. Setting up a reserve on this scale does not come cheap; a healthy water buffalo free from bovine tuberculosis, a rife disease which is hard to avoid, means these comically ugly characters with their helmets of curved horn come at a premium, commanding R150.000 each (£10,500, €11,700). Gardiner is loath to let the lions anywhere near them with obvious reason, and so they live in the safety of the breeding centre away from large predators and are sold off at an annual game auction held locally to promote the wildlife industry in the Eastern Cape.

A summer drought during recent months, the potential for political turmoil in the forthcoming elections travel and the state of the global economy are factors that stand to plight Shamwari this year but Gardiner is not one to shy away from a challenge. He has his sights set on purchasing a neighbouring farm which would add significant value with it’s rich grazing land and he is keen to enter into talks with nearby game reserves which have developed in the wake of Shamwari, with a view to dropping fences and creating a massive conservatory. This is conservation on a grand scale and his work here, it seems, has only just begun.

Jessica Bowen flew from London Heathrow to Cape Town return with British Airways. For reservations visit ba.com or call British Airways on +44 (0)844 493 0787
Shamwari is at www.shamwari.com