2024 was a jam-packed, adventure filled year – we thought we couldn’t top 2023, but we were wrong. 

Last year saw exploration into remote parts of Tanzania and Zambia, new team members, new partners, new films and high level campaigns that have resulted in huge impact on a national scale. 

From partners who have been with us from the beginning, to those who have just joined us; we have loved working with them all in shaping their stories and campaigns while supporting the impact they continue to make in Africa. 

We struggled to narrow our highlights down to 10, and we promise it is not in order of favourites (for our competitive colleagues) – please see our 2024 year highlights below: 

Intense planning and creativity goes into our partners’ online launches and content calendars each month. Seeing the results of the hard work at the end of the year is always rewarding and inspires us to continue with innovative and entertaining content for the new year.

2024 was an action packed 12 months of adventure and exploration across Africa. We have been fortunate to have had a range of recces, project and content creation trips. These trips allow us to get on the ground, enabling us to gain further insight into the intricacies and complexities of conservation and tourism in Africa.

Here are a few of the highlights:

• Semonkong Lodge in Lesotho
• Babanango Game Reserve in Zululand, KZN
• Maluti-Drakensberg, Clarens, and Sani Pass
• Lazy Lagoon Island and Mikumi, Ruaha, Katavi, and Rufiji National Parks in Tanzania
• Port Nolloth in the Northern Cape
• Port St Johns in the Eastern Camp
• Aliwal Shoal in KwaZulu-Natal
• North Luangwa in Zambia

An inaugural Biodiversity Economy and Investment Indaba was held in March 2024 in Johannesburg, where public and private sector, including President Rhamaposa, as well as community representatives and civil society, celebrated South Africa’s conservation achievements and support towards the global 30×30 conservation target.

In collaboration with WILDTRUST, Babanango Game Reserve and its ‘Environmental NGO Collab’ partners, Love Africa Marketing filmed and produced a short film showcasing Babanango Game Reserve’s approach to achieve crucial conservation targets while addressing some of the socio-economic aspects particularly relevant to our country.

Titled ‘30×30 with Babanango Game Reserve’, it showcases Babanango Game Reserve, in KwaZulu-Natal as an example of a modern and collaborative approach to community conservation, cultural heritage, and biodiversity.

30×30 is a global goal to protect 30% of our planet’s land and sea areas by 2030 in order to reverse the loss of biodiversity, adapt to climate change and reduce the risk of disease outbreaks.

In 2024 we returned to Tanzania with our partners – Foxes Safari Camps.

This was a dedicated trip for film – a three-week shoot to five of their collection of seven camps and lodges in Southern and Western Tanzania to produce a series of short films and content for future marketing campaigns.

July was the perfect time to visit for filming, as the weather remained sunny and we were able to capture some amazing wildlife in the seasonally dry landscapes. While a shoot is always tough work, filled with late nights, early mornings, long days, and many moments of ‘chasing the light,’ we loved spending time creating beautiful content with our partners.

Through this film shoot, we have furthered our efforts in building awareness for the lesser-known areas in Southern Tanzania.

Watch the first three films on the Foxes’ Facebook page here.

We are excited to introduce our newest partner – North Luangwa Conservation Programme (NLCP) a partnership organisation between Frankfurt Zoological Society and Department of National Parks and Wildlife.

In November, we had the opportunity to visit the North Luangwa landscape. This included a site inspection of the national park and the tourism offerings we will be focusing on as part of a destination marketing campaign.

Beyond the site inspections, we were invited to present our plans to market North Luangwa as a must-visit destination at the Annual North Luangwa Landscape Forum Meeting in Mpika.

We are looking forward to working on this campaign and increasing awareness of North Luangwa.

In collaboration with Living Limpopo, ALL RISE, and the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS), we supported this team in bringing awareness to the planned Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone (MMSEZ) in Limpopo, South Africa. The objective was to shed light on the establishment of the largest coal-fuelled industrial development in South Africa’s history, which will ultimately destroy Limpopo’s Vhembe Biosphere Reserve. The development contradicts the visionary plan to create a landscape-scale conservation area in this wild but fragile region that will not only benefit the environment, but the people who depend on it.

Working on this provided a reminder to us all of how impactful focused energy, messaging and efforts can be in order to make positive change.

Learn more here: www.livinglimpopo.org

In the build up to World Lion Day, we worked with our partners, Blood Lions in a collaborative campaign with other organisations to showcase the life-cycle of a lion in captivity; from cub petting to canned hunting.

The collaboration included Youth for Lions, Voice4Lions, Four Paws, and Humane Society International – Africa. The campaign developed a series of illustrations designed by the talented Patrick George, and used in this animation which showcased the lifecycle of a captive lion and was launched on World Lion Day, 8 August 2024.

Watch it here.

The campaign aimed to bring awareness to the plight of captive bred lions in South Africa, and to advocate for the public to stop visiting captive predator facilities.

In addition, Blood Lions and Youth for Lions commissioned a mural, designed and created by artist ‘Giffy’, on Durban’s Golden Mile. The concept was born from the tagline “you’re killing them softly,” and aimed to highlight to the public how their kindness was being taken advantage of, and that they should not be supporting predator parks.

While our focus is strategic communications and marketing, our film production side exploded in 2024. We filmed and launched 9 short productions that followed inspiring individuals, highlighted beautiful parts of our continent, and showcased lodges and camps to add to your bucket list.

A special thank you to the crew and specialists across these various projects: Love Africa team, Mark Gerrard, Sven Musica, Calvin Thompson, Devin Trull, Stew Nolan, WILDTRUST, Semonkong Lodge, Foxes Safari Camps, Boundless Southern Africa, and Babanango Game Reserve.

Love Africa Marketing and our partners were thrilled to have taken home a range of awards this year. Each project and production takes a huge amount of planning, collaboration and creativity – both from the crew, our partners and the teams on the ground.

Thank you to our partners for trusting us in showcasing your stories and impact through the screen.

AWARDS:

International Tourism Film Festival Africa:

• Pinnacle Award and a Gold in the Wildlife and Conservation category for ‘SEE US’ with WILDOCEANS
• Gold in Sustainable and Responsible Tourism for Babanango Game Reserve’s ‘This is Home’
• Silver Awards for Babanango’s ‘Battlefields,’ ‘Return of the King,’ and ‘Madwaleni.’
• ITFFA Festival Directors’ Choice Award presented to Love Africa founder and MD, Nicola Gerrard.

Nature Without Borders Film Festival:

• Excellence Award for ‘SEE US’

South African Indie Film Festival:

• Best Documentary for ‘SEE US’

Terres Travel Festival:

• Awarded Gold for ‘Madwaleni’

Wildlife Conservation Film Festival:

• Gabriel Figueroa Special Award went to ‘Caleb: Beyond the Bite’ with Sharks Under Attack
• Semi-finalist was ‘SEE US’

SELECTIONS:

Earth In Focus Singapore Nature Film Festival 2024

• Finalist for ‘SEE US’

Natourale 24 Film Festival:

• Finalist for ‘SEE US’

Vaasa Wildlife Festival:

• Finalists were ‘Return of the King’ and ‘SEE US’

Here is a short selection of images taken by our photographers that showcase a few of our top highlights and stories of 2024.

The year flew by with many successes, hard work, and a couple of bucket list opportunities. We would like to thank our partners and team members for a spectacular year and we look forward to what 2025 has in store for us.

Ready to work with us in 2025? Get in touch HERE.