When it comes to picking up the pieces of a fragmented city or country after a terrorist attack, act of nature, or war, your travel dollars can help significantly. Travelers came back to Manhattan in droves after 9/11 to offer their support to the city. Months after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, folks were drinking Hurricanes and eating beignets in the French Quarter, giving the city a much needed boost of business. At the beginning of 2008, battles broke about between rival parties in Kenya after a presidential election. The peace was soon restored to a country that many people believe is one of the most stable in Africa. But tourism numbers were down significantly this past summer. This not only hurts outfitters, hotel owners, and restaurants, but it also might endanger the wildlife.

Ecotourism and wildlife conservation have taken root all across Kenya, but nowhere is this more evident than in Lewa, a private wildlife sanctuary at the base of 17,058-foot Mount Kenya. Ian Craig has converted his former cattle ranch into a 62,000-acre game reserve with small lodges and more than enough room for exclusive safari outfitters like Abercrombie and Kent to house their mobile tented safaris. The black rhino, poached heavily in these parts for most of the 20th century, has been reintroduced and now numbers more than 50. More importantly, Craig shares his tourism money with seven communities that border his grounds, supporting two health clinics, eight primary schools, a bank, and an irrigation system that supplies much needed water to this arid savannah. These villagers used to kill elephants that wandered onto their farmland, skin zebras to make souvenir carpets, and, yes, decimate the rhino population for its horn. Not any more. They’re now part of the equation that Craig hopes one day will create a wildlife corridor from the slopes of Mt. Kenya 300 to 400 kilometers north to the Ethiopian border, surrounded by 2,000,000 acres of preserved land. But none of this will come to fruition if you don’t use your travel dollars wisely. For more information, visit www.lewa.org.