I’ve come to learn how the pandemic has affected tourism and wildlife conservation in Tanzania and have managed to get up close to a leopard in the process.

Nature conservation in Africa is almost entirely funded by tourism and was put in serious jeopardy by the Covid-19 shutdown.

A study by the African Leadership University (ALU)’s School of Wildlife Conservation found that Tanzania earned US$2.6 billion from 1.5 million visitors in 2019, and tourism employed 623,000 people.

‘Overwhelmed with emotion’: Hong Kong father and son on climbing Everest

The World Travel and Tourism Council estimated that tourism contributed more than 10 per cent of the nation’s total GDP that year.

A 2021 report by conservation incubator the Luc Hoffmann Institute estimated that 94 per cent of local staff employed in nature-based tourism across Africa were affected by reduced wages, unpaid leave or redundancy during the pandemic. Almost half a million jobs were lost.

With almost 40 per cent of Tanzania’s land protected as national parks and game reserves, it’s difficult to see a future for the country without safari tourism.

Anderson pulls out a small thermal camera and hands me a tablet, on which I can watch what he is seeing in thermal vision.

The leopard appears highlighted in bright pink. It stands, stretches and saunters towards the track where our vehicle is parked.

My heart is pounding but I have to focus on my role as a “citizen-scientist”: taking screenshots, which we will later upload to the project database for identification and location.

Triangulation, animal collaring, camera trapping and the thermal-imaging technology we’re using are part of a new way to actively involve travellers in conservation.

It’s the result of the first three-way partnership between a safari company, the Tanzania National Parks Authority (Tanapa) and the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute.

As a guest, I am helping scientists conduct the first biodiversity audit of the area and my nightly fee contributes critical revenue to fund this conservation.

The next day, at the camp’s Douglas Bell Eco Research Station, I meet with Hellen Mchaki, park ecologist for Tanapa, who tells me that tourism growth is a central part of their strategy for Ruaha National Park.

“There are no other forms of revenue [for the park],” she says, adding that the absence of visitors during the pandemic caused closures of lodges and camps.

“It was bad. Conservation work cannot happen without tourists.”

The citizen-science safari is a growing trend across Africa.

Guests at Tswalu Kalahari, a private game reserve in South Africa, can book an experience ear-notching and microchipping rhino, with funds going to conserving the critically endangered species.

At the &Beyond Phinda Private Game Reserve, also in South Africa, visitors take part in research and monitoring of the pangolin, a species heavily poached for its scales.

In partnership with the African Pangolin Working Group, the project has successfully brought the species back to an area in which they had long been locally extinct.

‘Sunbed wars’ at hotels are getting worse – and it’s not just the Germans

Dr Sue Snyman, director of research at the ALU School of Wildlife Conservation, says that 95 per cent of international tourists to Tanzania visit specifically to see its wildlife.

“This provides incentives for conservation, creates jobs and generates revenues in areas where there are often a limited number of other economic opportunities,” she says.

Anderson, for example, is Wasangu (Sangu people) and his community considers the territory of Ruaha National Park to be its ancestral land.

Before becoming a trainee guide, he was a poacher who foraged honey from the national park by following honeyguide birds to wild hives. Now, he has gainful employment.

Dunia Camp, in Tanzania’s Serengeti region, is the only safari camp on the African continent staffed and managed entirely by women.

It has created opportunities for Tanzanian women to work in the safari industry for the first time, including in roles such as guides and security guards.

Before the pandemic, African travel was rising in popularity among Chinese travellers seeking fresh air, nature and wildlife in combination with a luxury safari experience.

In 2018, Trip.com reported a 70 per cent increase in Chinese customers purchasing Africa-related tours, and Hurun Report’s “The Chinese Luxury Traveller 2018” report listed Africa as having the largest rise in interest from high-net-worth Chinese tourists that year.

Billionaires such as Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma are regular safari-goers and during my stay at Jabali Ridge – a luxury camp in southern Tanzania – there was a rumour that a billionaire heiress from Hong Kong had recently luxuriated in the camp’s discreetly palatial private house. (Alibaba owns the Post).

Chinese celebrities have also begun to support African wildlife conservation and anti-poaching initiatives; actress Jiang Yiyan, former NBA star Yao Ming and actor Jackie Chan are all part of WildAid’s celebrity activist programme.

But with China’s borders remaining shut and the tourism industry recovering very slowly, the future remains uncertain for African conservation efforts.

On my final evening at Usangu, Anderson drives us across the bush towards the source of the Great Ruaha River, the park’s life source.

‘Pure chaos’: how Maldives’ whale shark tourism puts animals’ lives at risk

The sun is setting in a fiery ball over a wide plain dotted with flat-bottomed acacia trees. In the river, dozens of tiny, flicking ears are the only evidence of a bloat of hippos lazing just under the surface.

A round of gin-and-tonics appears and the night’s first star twinkles overhead.

I ask Anderson how his family feels about his new job as a safari guide.

“At first, my grandfather and family were unsure about me coming back to our homeland to work as a guide. They didn’t understand it,” he says, his eyes fixed on the pink horizon.

“But now they see it as positive that I am spending time here and protecting this place.

“And I can bring them honey without poaching, which makes them happy.”