Sacred Earth’s journeys are carried by partners — lodge owners, guides, drivers, the custodians who open a site. Before any of them appears on a traveller’s proposal, they agree to the standard below. We hold ourselves to it first.
People
No identifiable person is photographed without their agreement. Children, only with a guardian present and consenting. Poverty is never used as a backdrop — not in a partner’s marketing, not in ours. Everyone who appears in a Sacred Earth frame agreed to be in it, and we expect the same of any image a partner puts our name near.
Sacred sites
The custodians’ rules govern, whatever the light is doing. Where photography is restricted, it is not taken. Where a site is closed, it is not pressed. At Mparo, the inner shrine is the Bunyoro kingdom’s to open. At Nyero, nobody touches the pigment.
“We didn’t photograph it” is an acceptable answer. On these journeys it is sometimes the right one.
Wildlife
No crowding an animal — no off-road looping to box one in, no edging closer because a guest asked. Distance is kept even when the sighting is the point, and especially then. A guide who turns the vehicle away from a stressed animal has met the standard, not failed it.
Money
Community revenue is itemised or it is not claimed. If a partner says a fee reaches the families at a park boundary, they can show the line where it does. Fees a community sets are paid as set — never negotiated down.
Language
People are named, or their role is named. A ranger is a ranger, a host is a host, an elder is an elder — never “the locals”. That holds in writing, in briefings and in the vehicle.
Agreements
Our agreements are in plain language: what is paid, what is expected, and how either side walks away. Short enough to read in one sitting, clear enough that nobody needs it interpreted back to them.
If this reads like how you already work, we should talk. Lodge and camp owners start at list your property, guides at become a guide, and anything else goes to [email protected]. What we ask of travellers in return is on responsible travel.