IN 2016, the Elephant Ignite Expedition’s all female crew embarked on an epic three-month, 10 country journey aimed at raising awareness for the poaching crisis faced by Africa’s declining elephant populations.
The project was spearheaded by Carla Geyser from Blue Sky Society Trust, a KZN based conservation focused, non-profit organisation.
The 16 000km journey saw the women engage with 32 conservation organisations that work tirelessly to help preserve Africa’s declining wildlife populations.
During the first week of their journey, they visited Elephants Alive (EA) where two elephant bulls and one cow were collared as part of an ongoing study to determine how minerals in the soil, water and plants influence elephant movement with one of the aims also being the application of this data to support efforts to mitigate human-elephant conflict.
The collar for the elephant cow was funded by the expedition and she was subsequently named “Ignite.”
So began a journey of keeping a protective eye on Ignite’s movements.
Fast forward four years, and Carla has expanded on the sustainable travel concept, successfully leading expeditions into Africa under the banner Journeys with Purpose (#JWP).
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#JWP brings together like-minded people from around the world on trips that focus on visiting and raising funds for wildlife initiatives along the route.
To date the #JWP expeditions have travelled to Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique and Zambia. At least four expeditions are on the 2020 travel calendar.
To kick off Blue Sky Expeditions year, and their fundraising drive, a small team will re-visit Elephants Alive in a joint collaring operation in March.
Ignite’s collar is nearing the end of its four-year lifespan and the original Elephant Ignite team together with individuals from some of Carla’s later #JWP are rallying to support the collaring operation aptly named “Re-igniting Ignite”.
Elephants Alive aims to collar three elephants on the day and the #JWP team is fundraising to sponsor two collars and the associated veterinary costs.
A crowd-funding campaign has been set up and the crew hope the public will share and donate, even if it is just a small amount. As with all #JWP trips, travel costs are for the crews account and no donation funds are used in this regard.
For more information on joining the adventure of a life-time contact: https://www.blueskysociety.org/expeditions/
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