Draft:AndBeyond

andBeyond

Industry	Hospitality, hotels
Founded	1990
Founders	Kevin Leo-Smith, Trevor Koppen, Dave Varty, Alan Bernstein
Headquarters	Sandton, South Africa
Number of locations	28 (2026)
Area served	Africa, Asia, South America
Key people	Joss Kent (CEO and executive chairman)
Products	Hotels, spas, clothing
Website	andbeyond.com

andBeyond (stylised &Beyond; formerly Conservation Corporation Africa, or CC Africa) is a South African travel and tour operating company headquartered in Sandton, Johannesburg. Founded in 1990, the company operates safari lodges and camps, expedition yachts and guided journeys across parts of Africa, Asia and South America. It has been associated with wildlife conservation initiatives, habitat restoration projects and community partnership programmes in areas where it operates, supported in part by tourism revenue..

The company was established with the creation of Phinda Private Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal in 1991, on former farmland that was rehabilitated and restocked with wildlife. It changed its name from CC Africa to andBeyond in 2008 to reflect its expansion beyond Africa. The company is associated with a number of conservation programmes, including the translocation of rhinoceros from South Africa to Botswana, the reintroduction of Temminck's pangolin in KwaZulu-Natal, and long-term leopard research at Phinda. Other notable translocation efforts—in collaboration with African Parks—include the donation of five lionesses from Phinda to Akagera National Park in Rwanda in 2015,and the donation of 70 white rhino (completed in two phases of 35 rhino each) to Akagera in 2015.

History

Founding

The company was co-founded in 1990 as Conservation Corporation Africa by conservationists Kevin Leo-Smith and Trevor Koppen; Dave Varty, a member of the family associated with Londolozi in the Sabi Sand; and financier Alan Bernstein. Early shareholders included the Getty Foundation and the AECI Pension Fund.

In 1991 the company assembled an area of degraded farmland in northern KwaZulu-Natal—land previously used for activities including pineapple and cattle farming—and began restoring it as a private game reserve.The reserve was named Phinda, from a Zulu expression meaning “the return”. It was subsequently restocked with wildlife under a conservation and tourism model associated with habitat restoration and local economic activity in the surrounding area.Phinda has since become a founding member of the Munywana Conservancy, a collaboration of private and community landowners covering several tens of thousands of hectares and comprising a number of distinct habitats.

In 1992, the Rural Investment Fund was established; it was later renamed Africa Foundation and has since rebranded as Wild Impact. It is a non-profit organisation focused on community partnership and development, education and healthcare in areas near its lodges.

Expansion

During the 1990s and 2000s the company expanded across southern and eastern Africa, adding lodges and camps in countries including Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique.The company entered Asia through Taj Safaris, a joint venture with the Indian hotel group Taj Hotels. The first Taj Safari lodge, Mahua Kothi, opened in 2006 at Bandhavgarh National Park.

In October 2008 the company changed its name from CC Africa to andBeyond, stating that “Africa” no longer reflected the regions in which it operated. At the same time it announced plans to expand into Central and South America.The company subsequently developed operations and itineraries in South America, including in Chile, Argentina, Peru and Ecuador.

In 2024 the company launched an expedition yacht, the andBeyond Galapagos Explorer, which began operating week-long voyages in the Galápagos Islands in June of that year. The company also markets polar and Patagonia voyages aboard vessels operated by the expedition company Antarctica21.

Operations

As of the mid-2020s the company operated more than two dozen lodges and camps across several countries, alongside guided tours and expedition voyages.Its lodge operations were concentrated primarily in Africa, where the company’s portfolio included properties in South Africa, Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Namibia, with Phinda Private Game Reserve regarded as its founding property.The company also operated island and coastal properties in the Indian Ocean, including Mnemba Island off Zanzibar and lodges on the Mozambican coast and islands.

Outside Africa, andBeyond’s operations included wildlife lodges in India through the Taj Safaris joint venture, as well as travel itineraries in countries including Bhutan and Sri Lanka. In September 2023, andBeyond Punakha River Lodge opened in Bhutan.In South America, the company offered itineraries and operated properties in Chile, Argentina, Peru and Ecuador, together with an expedition yacht in the Galápagos.

Conservation

The company has been associated with wildlife conservation and habitat restoration programmes, several of which have been undertaken with external conservation organisations and government agencies.

Rhinos Without Borders

In 2014 andBeyond and Great Plains Conservation launched Rhinos Without Borders, a joint project in collaboration with local governments and stakeholders, to move founding populations of rhinoceros from high-poaching areas of South Africa to the Okavango Delta in Botswana. By 2019 the project reported that 87 animals had been translocated, with calves subsequently born in Botswana.The relocations were reported in the South African press.

Pangolin reintroduction

In 2019 Phinda and the Munywana Conservancy became a release site for a project to reintroduce the Temminck's ground pangolin to KwaZulu-Natal, where the species had been considered locally extinct for several decades. The programme, led by the African Pangolin Working Group with the Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital and Humane Society International–Africa, used a “soft release” method in which rehabilitated animals rescued from the illegal wildlife trade were monitored after release. Seven pangolins were released at Phinda in 2019, and the project reported the first wild-born pup in the area in December 2020. Mongabay and National Geographic described the effort as among the first of its kind.

Marine conservation

Oceans Without Borders is a marine conservation initiative founded by andBeyond and its community and conservation partner, Wild Impact, formerly Africa Foundation. The initiative covers seascapes around Mnemba Island in Zanzibar and Benguerra Island, Mozambique. Activities have included coral-restoration projects and a long-running green turtle nest-monitoring programme. A restricted Marine Special Area around Mnemba Atoll was designated in partnership with the Zanzibar government and the Mnemba Island Marine Conservation Area Authority.

Community partnerships

Two communities neighbouring Phinda Private Game Reserve lodged land claims under South Africa's post-1994 land restitution programme. The Mnqobokazi and Makhasa claims were lodged in 1995 and 1998 respectively with the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights.The claims were settled in 2007, when land was restored to the Makhasa and Mnqobokazi communities, who elected to keep it under conservation and entered into a long-term lease with Phinda for its continued use as part of what is now the Munywana Conservancy.Title deeds were formally handed over to the Qhubekani-Mnqobokazi and Makhasa community trusts by the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development in March 2020.

Wild Impact, formerly Africa Foundation, operates community development projects in areas near andBeyond lodges, including education, healthcare, water infrastructure and training initiatives.

Research and science

Phinda and the Munywana Conservancy are the site of the Munywana Leopard Project, a long-term study of leopards in collaboration with the wild cat conservation organisation Panthera and researchers including Guy Balme and Luke Hunter.Data from the project has been used in peer-reviewed research published in journals including PLOS One, examining the recovery of the leopard population following earlier over-harvesting and the effects of hunting on leopard populations.The pangolin reintroduction project, undertaken with the African Pangolin Working Group, has also generated data on the behaviour and survival of reintroduced animals through tracking and monitoring.

See also

• Phinda Private Game Reserve
• Mnemba Island
• Pangolin trade
• Land reform in South Africa
• Wildlife conservation
• Ecotourism
• Rhinoceros

Further reading

• Varty, Dave; Buchanan, Molly (2008). The Full Circle: To Londolozi and Back Again—a Family's Journey. Penguin Books (South Africa). ISBN 9780143025764. Memoir by a co-founder covering Londolozi and the founding and growth of Conservation Corporation Africa.
• Varty, Shan. The Return: The Story of Phinda Game Reserve. An account of the creation and restoration of Phinda Private Game Reserve.
• Carlisle, Les (2013). “Rhinos without borders” (three-part series), The Ecologist. First-hand account of the rhino capture and translocation programme by its project manager.
• “Largest Rhino Airlift Ever to Move 100 At-Risk Animals” and “First Rhinos in Massive African Airlift Released in Botswana” (2015), National Geographic. Feature coverage of the Rhinos Without Borders translocation.