While there’s no doubt that being alluded to as the Brangelina’s of the safari industry is quite a compliment, there’s much more substance to the work of Dereck & Beverly than appearances. Tiara Walters of South Africa’s Sunday Times weaves a story which we hope will “turn around a billion Chinese”. But it requires your [...]

To all our managers, staff, colleagues, and tourism friends in Kenya Our thoughts are with you all in Kenya this week for a peaceful transition in government and on the streets. Despite CNN and BBC wanting to show footage of the old election unrest, their efforts have largely been thwarted so far and there is [...]

Yesterday morning, after just leaving  Mara Toto, guests immediately bumped into three of Notch’s boys as they licked their chops from finishing up a hippo killed a couple days earlier. These brothers have, since their time as a young coalition on the Masai Mara’s Paradise Plains become specialised in killing hippos. This is quite an [...]

BREAKING NEWS….Mara Plains & Mara Toto status report from Richard and Lorna: We’ve done it. Mara Toto is now a fully functional seasonal camp running 100% on solar power, with no negative discharge into the environment (thanks to Biorock sewage treatment system), 5000 litres of rainwater catchment off the solar panel bank so far, all [...]

After a monumental storm last night, and following weeks of rain in the Mara, the land is completely saturated and drained straight into the river running past camp. The water level has risen approximately twelve feet vertically and has engulfed the bridge into camp! Consequently we have had to pause with carting furniture across the [...]

“Look deep into Nature and then you will understand everything better” – Albert Einstein After having had one of the wettest Christmas and New Years any of us can remember, on the 3rd January, as we closed the camp for the full rebuild, the sun emerged and is shining brightly on our plans for the [...]

All too often in the world of conservation, we are peppered with tragic stories. De-horned rhino here, speared lion there, but today we bring to you a conservation story which might just give you great hope for 2013 and beyond. Sure, you might say, “but it’s just a set of games, who cares, what’s that [...]

Christmas day at Mara Plains started with cars heading out for the morning drives to experience the unbeatable wildlife action. Guests followed Notch’s boys (four huge male lions) and watching the cheetah brothers hunting in the overcast light of dawn. As the morning moved on the cloud cleared into a beautiful day and the Mara Plains crew set up [...]

First Maasai Olympics in Kenya creates new tradition: The track and field competition uses warriors’ lion hunting skills for athletics “The Maasai Olympics is not just a sporting activity and event. It is a once–in–a–lifetime opportunity given by the Maasai elders to save this ecosystem,” Dereck Joubert, CEO of Great Plains Conservation, said. In Kenya’s [...]

The strange weather continues this week with a very unusual blanket of thick fog descending on the plains at sunrise today. It didn’t last for long and already half an hour later the blazing morning sun is shining through, evaporating the dampness in plumes of steam and bouncing beams of light off every droplet of [...]

“To see ten thousand animals untamed and not branded with the symbols of human commerce is like scaling an unconquered mountain for the first time, or like finding a forest without roads or footpaths, or the blemish of an axe. You know then what you had always been told — that the world once lived [...]

Lara Logan of CBS 60 Minutes profiles “The Last Lions” filmmakers Dereck and Beverly Joubert on location at their Great Plains Conservation Camps in Botswana Scheduled to air Sunday November 25, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. ET/PT Lara Logan and a team from CBS 60 Minutes profiled filmmakers Dereck and Beverly Joubert at their Great Plains [...]

Great Plains Conservation is not simply a tourism venture. As our name suggests, we are actually primarily focused on conservation and use tourism as a vector to achieve our conservation goals. Hence we we call ourselves a “Conservation Tourism” company. To this end, Dereck & Beverly Joubert founded Big Cats Initiative in partnership with National [...]

A safari is definitely about more than just the big cats but it’s not everyday that one can see the three big cats of Africa in one drive. ‘Cat-trick’ last night with Ping. Cheetah with yearling cub, Notch’s boys (4 mafioso male lions) and Fig the Leopard.. who ended up getting chased up a tree [...]

A rarely seen pose of a leopard balancing on its hind legs. This is Acacia, resident leopardess, which was taken near Kenya’s Mara Plains Camp in October. Many thanks to Homsy Irani for sharing this image.

Mammal count in Kenya’s central Olare Orok Conservancy in one 20km game drive. 18 mammal species! not to mention the birds and reptiles. 28 Lions- (two prides) 1 Leopard 2 Cheetah 2 Hyena +-1500 Wildebeest, +-1000 Zebra, +-200 buffalo, 68 Topi, 8 Kongoni 16 Giraffe, 124 Impala, 18 Elephant, 25 Grant’s Gazelle, 7 warthogs, 7 [...]

“Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it”  – Roald Dahl Hello, “Hujambo” (Kiswahili) and “Supa” (Maa) to you all from the team here on the central plains of the Mara. It has been a little while since our last report (in migration season), so for that we would like to apologize and [...]

After the huge build-up of clouds and heat over the past week the rain finally arrived on the afternoon of the 27th, in a very big way. Coinciding with the month-end and a beautiful full moon (when we can see it), the thousands of wildebeest visible from the camp seem to have finally had enough [...]

For those of you who have been following our posts you will know of the massive battle that occurred three weeks ago when Mama Kali, one of the ‘Prideless Females’, threw herself headlong into the middle of the 17-strong Enkoyeni pride of lions in a courageous but desperate attempt to divert attention long enough for [...]

Just an hour ago (2pm) ‘Yellow’ our resident territorial male leopard killed a Thompson’s gazelle right next to the camp. As of right now he has it hanging in the huge hollow fig tree within 100 meters of the camp. Thanks to the resident troop of vervet monkeys who brought this to our attention with [...]

A couple of weeks ago we mentioned a particularly amazing sighting witnessed by some guests while sitting watching a wildebeest crossing of the Mara River. In short, a sudden commotion and explosion of movement behind the vehicle caused them to turn and capture a moment, mid-chase, as a lioness went for a wildebeest fawn. A [...]

This morning our resident pod of hippo decided to make the most of the slightly over cast weather and to bask in the cool cloudiness opposite tent number six.

Considering our last post was a little over a week ago we thought it may work out well to give you all a teasing taster of another incredible day-long experience at Mara Plains Camp from the eyes of a honeymoon couple in Africa for the first time. They left the camp yesterday morning and headed [...]

As many of you know Dereck and Beverly recently made a new movie called The Unlikely Leopard Why not take 2 minutes and enjoy the short clip available here ? Easy Prey scene – The Unlikely Leopard

Last night, like so many others was one to write home about, with two cars out on drives and one on a walk the feedback was as follows: Mara Plains guides, Ping and Kevin, spent the first part of the drive with the whole Enkoyeni lion pride. After this they found the leopards, Acacia and [...]

Into October now and the annual Migration, despite many huge herds having headed south towards the end of September, is far from over. There are still huge daily crossings of the Mara River by both the dazzles of Zebra or the Wildebeest or both. Recent crossings have seen the monster crocodiles just watching the proceedings [...]

Sarah Hoyland, from The Classic Safari Company in Australia, recently stayed at Mara Plains in Kenya and apart from loving everything there was to do at the camp was fortunate to be around when the Wild Dogs decided to visit the Mara Plains area for the first time in a verrryy long time Thxs Sarah [...]

“Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars…and if you have eyes you will see that the whole existence is joyful. Everything is simply happy. Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to [...]

This morning at 6:30am, as guests were leaving camp for their morning drive, their guide spotted three Wild Dogs passing within 200 meters of the camp, heading north through the Olare Orok Convervancy. Some of you may feel this may not be something that special but to put this in perspective, there are no recorded [...]

This morning, as the first light spread over the plains, the mother Cheetah with the now almost fully grown male cub managed a successful hunt across the plains right in front of the mess tent. They both managed to eat their fill before crossing the river above the camp and moving further into the conservancy. [...]