Here they teach chimps to be wild, and as if to emphasise the point a particularly rascally adolescent male lets rip in my direction with a fusillade of well-aimed rocks. ‘In the past conservation laws were side-lined by the human problem. Now I feel very confident for the future… During the war rebels disarmed hunters, and actually some chimp populations increased’ says Amarasekeran. The project provides employment for local people and encourages educational visits by parties of school children, both aspects reinforcing the positive links between conservation and tourism. However, this afternoon, my taxi driver David and I are the only visitors.

Next day I join Harry Gbetuwa one of a tranche of Sierra Leoneans recently returned from Iraq where they were lately employed by the US military keeping well fed GIs well fed. Harry is passionate about building a new Sierra Leone and is keen to show off a community eco-tourism project recently opened on the Banana Islands.

Heading out along the Freetown Peninsula, the town’s expansive Lumley Beach is filled with team after team of young men in colourful strips playing football. The beach games thin out and we divert a little way inland, the road soon becomes red, dusty and corrugated and after a few kilometres so do I.

Our rendezvous with lunch at Sussex is well timed. At Florence’s Resort, set breezily on the beach, Lydia, daughter in-law of the owner Franco Miari, is busy updating the wine list. I ask about her customers. ‘We don’t have tourists. Italians as it is an Italian restaurant. Lebanese, there are quite a few Lebanese, and better-off Sierra Leoneans. This week we have a wedding.’

I order barracuda, and while waiting luxuriate in a cold Star beer and deep breaths of fresh sea air. This is truly a splendid spot, I just need a pile of good books and about ten times as long as I have got to really appreciate it.

After lunch we call in at the stunningly beautiful River No 2 (there’s no River No 1) beach, rumoured in another time to have been the location for the original Bounty Bar adds. Here, under the trees are more white 4WDs bearing stencilled accreditation than you can throw a humanitarian aid budget at. Similarly coloured owners lounge in the shade of palms and splash through the waves. A dignified Sierra Leonean lady watches over an enclave of foreign children.

Kent is next, where else? Our boatman, Vidal Cole was the village headman during the civil war, a time when the islands’ population of 900 temporarily swelled with over 11,000 refugees. He waits patiently for us to scramble across the rocks and board for 15-minutes of lively water to the Banana Islands. ‘No vehicles, no pollution, no noise, no crime… no stress’ says the project’s handout and for once it’s all true.

On the beach the Youth Association’s thatched rondavals await guests for evenings of fresh lobster around the campfire. Unfortunately my schedule doesn’t allow for this obvious indulgence. Vidal leads Harry and I into nearby Dublin village, through trees heavy with avocados and mangoes and past Portuguese cannon from the early 1800s now slumbering atop earth ramparts. In a small courtyard former Paramount Chief, Moses Taylor gives us a short history of the islands from their settlement by freed slaves through to their roll as safe haven in the civil war. Walking further we encounter the 80th birthday celebrations for island resident Madam Mary Dundas.

I’m pressed to take pictures of the birthday girl and her two sisters before speaking to Elizabeth Wray, village headwoman and one of the instigators of the community project. Elizabeth acknowledges the direct benefits of carefully considered tourism. ‘In the future we are going to benefit from these things that people are coming to do in the islands.

We are improving, we have got the school, the hospital… the church and these chalets.’ Heading back, Harry and I wait for the boat, time enough to drink a couple of glasses of palm wine and talk of the future before the return voyage.

Large-scale sun and sand tourism is unlikely to revisit Sierra Leone anytime soon, and indeed such a deluge would probably cause as much damage as good. For now there’s an opportunity for local projects directly benefiting the immediate community to seed and take hold. What’s needed to fertilise this crop of initiative, is a gentle rain of enlightened travellers.

NEED TO KNOW

Nick Redmayne travelled from Heathrow to Freetown with British Airways 0870 850 9850 which offers return fares from £720 including taxes and fees.

Undiscovered Destinations 0191 206 4038 www.undiscovered-destinations.com offers a new 12-day tour of Sierra Leone featuring Tacugama and Banana Islands from £2,445pp including flights, accommodation, most meals and guiding.

Sierra Leone (www.bradtguides.com), written by Katrina Knight and James Manson, is published in December, 2007

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