Independent writer, creative director and avantgarde-nomad, Petra Dokken is based in Sweden but has lived and loved in many big cities over the years. Working with fashion and travels. Telling stories.

Africa is in everyone’s interest.

The first and the last.

Perhaps the first place we humans called home.

Perhaps the last continent to be exploited.

Definitely the last resort for the vast wilderness.

So. I travelled to Tanzania. So complex, so much to try and understand, and so beautiful.

Serengeti is mythical, the world known national park in the northern part of the country, over a million animals migrate around these plains. A full circle each year. As they always have.

I camp in the southern part of the park in January, the wildebeests walk and walk. They are all pregnant. Big beautiful bellies. I look at them for days.

I cry of admiration, they walk in endless lines. One for all. For real.

Their fur shining of silver. Small noises of communication, feelings of togetherness, of happiness, of hardship.

If the rain comes they will all start to drop. Even give birth as they run.

Run for their lives.

All is intricate. Who co-exists, when what happens. Every year they mate in the same spot, every year they move with the green grass. All year around so many lives circles this circle.

Tanzania has fish, trees, gold, gas, diamonds, minerals and animals… China wants this, many others too. All want. Things happen fast, big money is in motion.

Poverty but not misery, is no a possible choice?

A highway is talked and fought about, for more than five years now. It would ruin the migration.

Many conscious people feel that if we loose the Serengeti, all is lost.

We agree that the animals have to be worth more alive than not alive.

This is where eco-luxury safari comes in. Luxury lodges for photo safari creates money and motivation to save, to preserve and to conserve.

Even Jane Goodall agrees (a true hero she is).

The poaching for ivory is right now worse than ever – and the resistance is also bigger than ever. We want the elephants and rhinos alive and kicking.

Eco-safari is luxury and therefore can be green energy, organic and local food; and re-using materials, building bridges and raising awareness.

I see the fancy cars of an Arabic sheik, he leases land for hunting but the rumour says he mostly parties when he is visiting the property. An extravagant American in the area wants to build an airport so heavy machinery can fly straight to the Seychelles from the bush. Bush and beach you know.

Different interests and opinions.

Stargazing all night I hear them, feel them, smell them – treading the earth gently. Walking, walking…

Because they must, it is their purpose.

Each wildebeest matters.

Petra Dokken

More about Petra

Nomad Tanzania has mobile camps in different parts of the Serengeti, and a new permanent camp in the northern part called Lamai. The company makes luxury safari into something that puts the animals and nature first. Knowing that without a sustainable plan, they will be out of business all too soon.

www.nomad-tanzania.com