The word "ethical" has become quite common in wildlife tourism. You will see safari companies describing themselves as ethical, responsible, sustainable or wildlife-friendly. But when you actually sit inside a jeep watching a wild animal, what does any of that mean?
It is a question we think about quite often.
Because there is something slightly uncomfortable about every wildlife safari. We are entering a protected area because we want something from it. We want to see the animals, spend time in the landscape, take photographs and experience a part of nature that is very different from our everyday lives. Even if we behave carefully, we are still driving through an animal's habitat and our presence has some effect.
So why should tourism be there at all?
We don't think the answer is simply that it shouldn't.
For many people living around protected areas, the forest and wildlife are part of the landscape they have lived beside for generations. If responsible tourism can create ways for those communities to earn a living, that can change the relationship people have with the protected area around them.
A person who can earn through guiding, driving, accommodation, restaurants or other tourism-related work may have more options than someone who has to depend entirely on clearing forest for cultivation or farmland, or hunting wildlife for trade. Tourism can also create opportunities for education and conservation efforts, helping local communities understand more about the wildlife and landscapes around them and, importantly, see that protecting those places can also bring benefits to their own communities.
Of course, it is not as simple as saying tourism is good for conservation.
Poorly managed tourism can put more pressure on wildlife. Too many vehicles can gather around one animal. People can get too close. Animals can be blocked from moving naturally. Drivers can feel pressure from guests to get closer or reach the next sighting before someone else.
So both things can be true at the same time.
Tourism can help create reasons to protect a forest, while too much or poorly managed tourism can also put pressure on that same forest and the animals living in it.
For us, that is where the idea of an ethical safari really begins.
It is not about pretending that tourism has no impact. It is about asking whether we are doing everything reasonably possible to keep unnecessary pressure as low as we can, while making sure the people and communities around these protected areas can also benefit from keeping them protected.
Where does this become a problem in Yala?
To understand why this matters in Yala, you have to understand why so many people come here in the first place.
Yala has become famous around the world for its leopards, particularly in Block 1. If seeing a leopard is the main reason you have travelled to Sri Lanka, there is a genuine reason to consider that part of the park. We would never tell you otherwise simply because we operate in Blocks 5 and 6.
The problem is not that people want to see leopards.
We want to see them too.
The problem starts when a very large number of people are all looking for the same animal at the same time.
Imagine you are slowly driving through the park. You might have spent the last half hour watching an elephant, looking at birds or following tracks. The vehicles around you are spread out and the park feels quiet.
Then a leopard is reported somewhere nearby.
One jeep starts moving towards the area.
Then another.
Then several more.
The vehicles that were spread across different parts of the park can suddenly begin moving towards one location because everyone wants to give their guests a chance to see the leopard.
By the time you arrive, what started as one animal resting quietly in the forest can have turned into a gathering of vehicles.
This is the part of Yala that people often describe simply as "crowded", but the word doesn't really explain what is happening.
The important thing is not only that there are many jeeps.
It is that the behaviour of the safari can change because of the crowd.
Drivers may start thinking about where the other vehicles are. Guests may want a better position. Someone may move forward because another jeep has moved. Another vehicle may arrive from the opposite direction.
Suddenly everyone is trying to solve the same problem at the same time: how do we get a good view of this one wild animal?
And that is when the question of ethical tourism becomes much more than a nice word on a website.
What should happen when you finally find the animal?
The first thing we try to remember is that the animal does not know why we are there.
It doesn't know that someone has travelled from another country to see it.
It doesn't know that this may be the only leopard that person sees during their entire trip.
It doesn't know that someone has an expensive camera and has been waiting for the perfect photograph.
From the animal's point of view, we are simply vehicles and people sharing its space.
So if an elephant is feeding peacefully, why should we keep moving closer until it stops feeding?
If a leopard is walking along the track, why should we position the jeep so closely that it changes direction because of us?
If an animal is trying to cross the road, why should we block its path because we want it to stay in front of us for another few minutes?
These decisions may seem very small.
But wildlife watching is made up of small decisions.
We have been at a sighting where an elephant was feeding completely calmly. Another jeep arrived and stopped very close. The elephant stopped feeding. That is the moment where you realise the difference between watching wildlife and pressuring it.
- Giving an animal another few metres is more important than getting a slightly better photograph.
- Waiting quietly is better than moving closer.
- The best way to see natural behaviour is to stop trying to control the situation.
If an elephant continues feeding while we sit quietly, we get to watch the animal doing what it came there to do.
If it walks away, we let it walk away.
That might mean we lose the sighting sooner than we would have liked.
But at least the animal is still making the decision.
What if the animal decides to cross the road?
This is one of those moments where the difference between watching wildlife and trying to control a wildlife encounter becomes very clear.
Imagine an elephant is walking towards the road.
There are a few jeeps nearby.
The elephant reaches the road and starts crossing.
The natural reaction for some people might be to move forward because they want to keep the elephant in front of them for as long as possible.
But why?
The elephant has already decided where it wants to go.
Our job should be to allow it to do that.
We don't want to block its route, squeeze it between vehicles or make it change direction because we are worried about losing the sighting.
The same principle applies to other animals.
A leopard walking away should be allowed to walk away. A deer crossing the track should be allowed to cross. If an animal needs to move, we should give it the space to do so.
A close photograph is not worth much if the animal had to change its behaviour to give us that photograph.
But what happens when other jeeps arrive?
This is where things become much less straightforward.
You can book a responsible safari company, have a careful guide and still find yourself at a sighting where several other vehicles are already there.
That does not automatically mean your own safari has been irresponsible.
Yala is a shared national park.
We cannot control every other jeep. We cannot control what information another driver receives over the radio. We cannot control how quickly another vehicle arrives. We cannot control what another guide decides to do when they reach the sighting.
This is something we think visitors should understand before booking any safari.
An ethical safari does not mean you will never see another vehicle. It also does not mean you are guaranteed to have a wild animal completely to yourself.
What matters is what happens once you are there.
Is the animal relaxed? Can it move freely? Are vehicles keeping a reasonable distance? Is someone blocking its route? Are people making unnecessary noise? Are vehicles repeatedly moving closer because somebody wants a better angle?
These questions tell us much more than simply counting how many jeeps are present.
If an animal is relaxed and several vehicles are watching from a reasonable distance, the situation may still be manageable. If the animal is clearly trying to leave and vehicles are continuing to surround it, then we have a different problem.
And sometimes the right decision is to leave.
Even if the leopard is still there. Even if you have a good view. Even if you know there may not be another opportunity that day.
That is one of the harder decisions a guide can make, because you know your guests may be disappointed.
But sometimes a slightly less exciting experience for us is the better outcome for the animal.
What can a guide actually control?
This is probably one of the most important things to understand when judging a safari company.
A guide can control their own vehicle.
We can control how close we approach an animal, how quickly we drive, where we position ourselves and whether we follow an animal when it starts moving away. We can decide not to chase every radio call. We can avoid blocking an animal. We can avoid unnecessary noise. We can stay on permitted tracks. And if a sighting becomes too pressured, we can make the decision to move away.
But there is another side to this.
We cannot control another jeep.
If ten vehicles hear that a leopard has been found, we cannot tell all ten to stay away. If another driver decides to move closer, we cannot control that either.
This is why we don't think it is fair to judge a safari simply because there happened to be other vehicles around an animal.
Sometimes a responsible guide can do everything correctly and still end up in a crowded sighting.
What matters is whether that guide becomes part of the problem or tries to reduce their own contribution to it.
Planning a safari in Yala Block 5 or Block 6?
We plan everything personally and reply on WhatsApp, usually within a few hours.
Does choosing Block 5 or Block 6 make a safari more ethical?
This is where the part of Yala you choose becomes relevant.
We operate in Blocks 5 and 6 because the overall visitor pressure is generally much lower than in Block 1.
Block 1 has a much stronger reputation for leopards, and that brings more people looking for them. So there is a genuine trade-off here.
If your biggest priority is seeing a leopard, we would honestly tell you that Block 1 is the stronger choice. We don't think it would be right to hide that simply because we operate somewhere else.
But if you are willing to accept a lower leopard probability because you would rather have a quieter experience with generally fewer vehicles around you, then Blocks 5 and 6 become much more interesting.
The difference is not that every sighting there will be private.
It won't.
A leopard or sloth bear sighting can still attract vehicles. An elephant in an easy-to-reach area can also become busy.
The difference is the general level of vehicle pressure you are starting with.
There are many occasions in Blocks 5 and 6 when you can spend time exploring without constantly moving between large concentrations of vehicles. You can stop for birds. You can look at tracks. You can spend time around a water source. You can watch an elephant without immediately thinking about where the next jeep is positioned.
That doesn't make Blocks 5 and 6 automatically ethical.
A poorly managed safari can still be poorly managed in a quiet part of Yala.
It simply means you are choosing an area where the overall pressure is generally lower in the first place.
And for some visitors, that is an important part of the decision.
What about the guests?
The guide and driver aren't the only people who influence how a safari unfolds.
Guests do too.
And this is not about blaming visitors.
If you have travelled thousands of kilometres to Sri Lanka and your guide suddenly says there is a leopard nearby, of course you are going to be excited. You might want to get closer. You might want the best photograph. You might worry that the animal will disappear before you get a proper look.
All of that is completely understandable.
The problem is what happens when that excitement starts influencing every decision.
"Can we go a little closer?"
"Why is that jeep moving and we're not?"
"Can we follow them?"
"Can we get there before the leopard disappears?"
These are normal questions from someone who is excited about wildlife.
But a good guide should be able to say no.
Maybe you already have a good view. Maybe getting closer would make the animal uncomfortable. Maybe another vehicle is already in front of you and trying to force your way into the same position will only make the situation worse. Maybe the animal is about to move and the best thing is simply to wait.
This is where trust between the guest and guide becomes important.
If guests understand why a guide is making a particular decision, there is much less pressure to turn every sighting into a competition.
A safari is something shared between everyone inside the vehicle.
The way the guests react to wildlife can influence the way the driver feels pressured to behave.
So how can you tell if a safari company really takes this seriously?
Don't simply look for the word on the homepage.
Ask what it actually means.
Before booking, you could ask a safari company what they do when a leopard sighting becomes crowded. Ask whether they stay on permitted tracks. Ask what they do when an animal is trying to move away. Ask whether they encourage drivers to get as close as possible for photographs. Ask whether they promise guaranteed leopard sightings. Ask what happens if there are already many vehicles at an interesting sighting.
And listen carefully to the answer.
If the whole conversation is about getting closer, finding every famous animal and guaranteeing that you will see a leopard, that tells you something.
If the company is willing to explain that wildlife is unpredictable, that other vehicles cannot always be controlled and that sometimes the responsible decision is to leave an animal, that tells you something too.
You don't have to take the word "ethical" at face value.
Look at the behaviour behind the word.
Does an ethical safari have to be completely quiet and private?
Not necessarily.
You may have a responsible guide and still arrive at an elephant sighting with three other jeeps. That doesn't automatically make the experience unethical.
If everyone is keeping a reasonable distance, nobody is blocking the elephant and the animal is relaxed, the situation may be perfectly manageable.
On another day, there may be the same number of vehicles and the animal may be trying to leave.
The difference is not simply the number.
It is the pressure being placed on the animal.
This is why we don't promise "private sightings" as part of an ethical safari.
Wildlife is not something we can reserve for one guest. The animals decide where they go. Other vehicles exist. Other people are visiting the same national park.
What we can promise is that we will make our own decisions with that reality in mind.
Why we don't believe tourism itself is the enemy
It would be easy to look at a crowded leopard sighting and say that tourism has become the problem.
But if we stop there, we miss the other side of the story.
For people living around protected areas, tourism can create jobs and businesses that would not otherwise exist. A guide can earn by helping visitors understand the wildlife. A driver can earn by taking people into the park. A family can run accommodation or a small restaurant. Local businesses can benefit from people coming to see the protected landscape.
More importantly, responsible tourism can give people another way to make a living.
If someone has opportunities to earn through tourism, they may not have to depend as heavily on clearing forest for cultivation or farmland. They may not have to depend on hunting wildlife for trade.
And when local communities can see that the forest and wildlife around them bring real benefits, protecting those places can become connected to their own future.
There can also be opportunities to support education and conservation work in communities around protected areas. Teaching people more about the animals and landscapes around them can help build a better understanding of why those places are worth protecting.
None of this means that tourism automatically becomes conservation.
It doesn't.
Tourism can still cause damage when it is poorly managed.
But responsible tourism can give people another option. That is an important part of the conversation too.
We don't want wildlife to be protected only for visitors to come and photograph it. We want the people living around these protected landscapes to have reasons to value them as well.
Why we choose a slower approach
This is where our own approach to Yala comes from.
We don't want every safari to become a search for the next famous animal.
If we find elephants feeding peacefully, we can stay and watch them. If there is an interesting bird sitting in a tree, we can stop. If we find tracks, we can take a little time to understand what has been moving through the area. If a waterhole is quiet, we don't have to pretend something exciting is going to happen just because we are already there.
And if a leopard appears, we don't believe the only important thing is getting the closest possible photograph.
This is what we mean by a slower safari.
It doesn't mean ignoring good wildlife sightings. It doesn't mean driving slowly all day. It means allowing the safari to develop instead of making the whole day about collecting a list of animals.
Sometimes we may spend quite a while looking and find very little.
Then suddenly an elephant appears. Or a bird we hadn't expected. Or fresh tracks that tell us something has passed through the area. Or perhaps nothing happens at all for a while.
We are comfortable with that because a national park is not a place where we can control the outcome.
The animals are free to move. The weather changes. Water levels change. The conditions change.
And sometimes the most interesting part of the day is something you never expected to see when you left the gate.
What we cannot promise you
We cannot promise a leopard.
We cannot promise an elephant.
We cannot promise a sloth bear.
We cannot promise that you will have a sighting completely to yourself.
And we cannot promise that there will be no other vehicles around.
Even if an animal has been seen regularly for several days, it can move somewhere else before we arrive. A leopard can disappear into thick vegetation. An elephant herd can leave a water source. A sloth bear can cross a track and disappear into the forest.
We can use our experience to decide where it makes sense to look. We can read tracks and signs. We can understand the different habitats. We can pay attention to weather, water and the conditions on the day. We can change our plans when something changes.
But we cannot control the animal.
And we don't think it is fair to pretend that we can.
A wildlife safari should give you the opportunity to experience wild animals behaving naturally. It shouldn't sell you the animal as if it is part of the package.
So, how do you know if your Yala safari is ethical?
I don't think there is one certificate, one rule or one perfect definition that can answer that for every safari.
You have to look at the decisions being made.
Does the guide give wildlife space? Does the vehicle stay where it is supposed to? Does the driver avoid chasing animals? What happens when an animal wants to cross the road? What happens when a sighting becomes crowded? Does the guide feel comfortable leaving an animal when the situation becomes too pressured? Are guests encouraged to understand wildlife, or mainly encouraged to get closer photographs? Does the company tell you honestly what you may not see?
And perhaps one of the simplest questions is this:
What happens when getting a better sighting conflicts with giving the animal more space?
The answer to that question can tell you quite a lot about how an operator thinks.
For us, ethical wildlife tourism isn't about pretending that safari has no impact.
It does.
It is about being honest about that impact and doing what we reasonably can to reduce unnecessary pressure on wildlife. At the same time, we believe tourism can give people living around protected areas another way to earn a living, support local businesses, create opportunities for education and help make the protection of wildlife and forests valuable to the communities that live alongside them.
There will never be a perfect safari.
There will be other jeeps. There will be days when the animals don't appear. There will be moments when we have to make a choice between staying for a better photograph and giving an animal more space.
For us, that is where responsible guiding really happens.
Not in the word "ethical" written on a website.
It happens in those small decisions made when nobody can see what you chose to do.
It's rarely one big decision that makes the difference. It's dozens of small ones.
Frequently asked questions
There is no simple definition.
In practice, it comes down to the decisions made inside the park. Does the guide give wildlife space? Does the vehicle stay on permitted tracks? What happens when a sighting becomes crowded? What happens when an animal wants to move?
These small decisions, repeated across an entire day in the park, tell you much more about an operator's approach than the word ethical written on a website.
Ask questions before you book.
Ask what they do when a leopard sighting becomes very crowded. Ask whether they stay on permitted tracks. Ask what happens when an animal is trying to move away. Ask whether they promise guaranteed sightings.
If the whole conversation is about getting closer and guaranteeing that you will see a leopard, that tells you something. If the company is willing to explain that wildlife is unpredictable and that sometimes the responsible decision is to leave an animal, that tells you something too.
Not automatically.
An ethical safari depends on how the guide, driver and guests behave, regardless of which block they are visiting. A badly managed safari in Block 5 can still put pressure on wildlife.
The difference is that Blocks 5 and 6 generally start with much lower vehicle pressure. So if you care about keeping your safari quieter and reducing your own contribution to the concentration of vehicles around wildlife, these areas can be a better fit.
We cannot control every other jeep.
If vehicles arrive and start gathering, we look at how the animal is responding. Is it relaxed? Can it move freely? Is anyone blocking its route?
If the situation is becoming too pressured for the animal, sometimes the right decision is to leave. Even if the animal is still there. Even if we have a good view. That can be a difficult decision, but it is one a responsible guide should be able to make.
We would never promise a completely private sighting.
Yala is a shared national park. Other vehicles exist. Other people are visiting the same protected area.
What we can do is choose areas with generally lower vehicle pressure and manage our own behaviour carefully once we are at a sighting. On many occasions in Blocks 5 and 6, we have had sightings with very few or no other vehicles around. But we would never promise this.
Because wildlife is unpredictable.
Even if a particular animal has been seen regularly for several days, it can move somewhere else before we arrive. A leopard can disappear into thick vegetation. An elephant herd can leave a water source.
We can use our experience to decide where it makes sense to look, read tracks and signs, and adjust when conditions change. But we cannot control the animal. And we don't think it is fair to pretend that we can.
Both things can be true at the same time.
Responsible tourism can give communities living around protected areas ways to earn a living that don't require clearing forest or hunting wildlife. It can create reasons to value and protect the landscape.
At the same time, too much or poorly managed tourism can put real pressure on wildlife. The question is not simply whether tourism is good or bad. It is whether we are doing everything reasonably possible to keep unnecessary pressure low while making sure the people and communities around these places can also benefit from keeping them protected.
Thinking about a safari in Yala Block 5 or Block 6?
The best way to find out if it suits what you are looking for is to ask. We reply personally on WhatsApp, usually within a few hours.