In Conversation with Peter Allison from Natural Selection

‘In 2017, a group of old friends had the idea that conservation is really serious but safari is supposed to be fun,’ the affable Australian tells me, ‘so they built the company around that idea. No one travels halfway around the world for a chandelier, so we’re as much about luxury experience outside of the tent – with wildlife – as we are about premium standards inside it.’ The friends had pedigree in the safari business. One of them is the founder of Wilderness Safaris, a big player in the industry, so they weren’t starting from scratch, but they were striking out into the unknown.

‘At the start, we were about 6 or 7 people and we thought we might have 10 properties after a decade,’ explains Peter. ‘Now we have nearly 30 in 8 years – and 2 of those didn’t count because of COVID,’ he chuckles. Part of the reason that Natural Selection has been able to grow at such a rate is its model. The company doesn’t actually own properties outright, so plenty of the lodges and camps in their portfolio predate it.

‘We first look at whether a property offers, or could offer, an outstanding wildlife experience. We also look at whether we can add conservation value,’ Peter says. ‘If it ticks those boxes, we get interested.’ Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But it’s not as straightforward as it seems. ‘Having genuine conservation impact is harder than you might expect. If you’re in the middle of a national park, lots has probably been done already, so our impact will be minimal,’ Peter explains, ‘and, with all due respect to Sir David, Africa isn’t just one massive plain with wildlife roaming across it. It’s pools of wildlife surrounded by an enormous number of people, and it’s at the border areas between the two where interactions happen, that’s where we can have impact.’

Impact is a popular word in the travel industry. No plastic bottles: impact. The occasional rewilding of a small plot: impact. Natural Selection, though, are a little different. Take the Elephant Express, for example. A few years ago, the company took over an existing property near to a village. When they asked the villagers what the single thing that mattered most to them was, they fully expected them to say lions taking cattle. Instead, to a man, they responded that it was education. The problem, though, was that children were walking up to 8 miles – one-way – to get to school and, shockingly, 2 a year from a cohort of 200 were being killed by elephants. Aside from the horrendous emotional impact that that was having, it was a public health crisis. Natural Selection went to the government and asked to build a school in the area. The government, thinking that the company would leave it half-built, told them to piss off (Peter is wonderfully profane. He proudly informs me that he holds the record for the most uncensored swear words on Australian broadcast radio when he told a story about bees live on ABC. It involved the word ‘prick’ rather a lot). Despite the government setback, Natural Selection instead introduced the Elephant Express, a minivan service that ferries kids to school, the elderly to clinics, and pregnant women to appointments. In the 5 years that it’s been running, no one has been killed.

‘It’s my most treasured travel and conservation moment,’ Peter says, ‘and the reason I consider it conservation is because now the community are well-intended towards us.’ What he means by that is that, instead of poisoning the lions and elephants that were taking cattle and trampling crops, the villagers now come to Natural Selection, who can respond appropriately by fencing off areas or moving animals. ‘It’s community work that doubles as conservation.’ This is how the company operates everywhere – across South Africa, Botswana and Namibia – adding genuine conservation value.

It backs up operations with a pledge, inspired by the clothing company Patagonia. ‘They give 1% of their turnover to the planet and we thought we could give a little bit more,’ Peter says. That’s the reason why Natural Selection give 1.5% of all turnover before profit towards on-the-ground community and conservation projects. It’s not about putting their logo on things, but finding people and organisations who already have great operations and infrastructure in place and supporting them. In fact, it sounds a little like the company’s overall model.

Because finding people with great operations and infrastructure when it comes to lodges and camps is something that Peter and the team have certainly done. If you’ve not been on their website, do. I spent a glorious hour simply exploring their portfolio and, although there aren’t enough words in this article to describe them all, I’ll give you a highlight. Shipwreck Lodge on Namibia’s Skeleton Coast is a series of luxury cabins in the middle of this vast desert wilderness, each of which has been designed as a shipwreck. They’re made of timber and resemble the bow end of an old-fashioned ship; they face out to sea with huge open windows and a terrace and are surrounded on all side by vast, empty space. ‘The night skies there are honestly the best in the world,’ Peter say, ‘and the architect who designed that lodge is, in my book, a genius.’ Elsewhere, they have ‘sky-beds’ in Botswana, elephant lodges in South Africa and private camps on endless salt pans in Namibia. Really, their properties are jaw-dropping.

They want to add more, too, across the entire African continent. Peter, who also guides 50 or 60 times a year, has recently returned from Chad, where he spent some time in their short, but epic, wildlife season. ‘We feel as though our model can work anywhere. Africa, yes, but also Brazil and Australia.’

Why not? For a company that started life 8 years ago as the brainchild of a few mates and that now employees over a thousand people around the world, the sky’s the limit.