Governors’ Camp in the Masai Mara National Reserve in south-western Kenya seems to have got things so right.

Founded in 1972 by Aris Grammaticas, it certainly ticks all the Out of Africa boxes with its large tents (at the Il Moran camp they are more like marquees), gourmet food and wine, hot air balloon at dawn experiences, and fleet of Land Rovers that deliver guests to the kind of close-up wildlife experiences seen in October on BBC’s “Big Cat Live” programmes, which are filmed here.

The dramatic setting of the endless savannah punctured by termite mounds and giraffe-nibbled trees is certainly captivating.

However at Governors’ there is also action behind the scenes.

The camp has a zero-waste policy. All rubbish is sorted, separated and recycled. Plastic bottles are returned to the water company, Tetrapack juice cartons are shredded and turned into chipboard to make low-cost housing in Nairobi (with an unexpected benefit that they are termite-proof), glass is crushed and made into objects such as ash trays, while food waste is composted.

Money goes towards a local school, an epilepsy charity and a project for street kids in Nairobi. All this is done, though, without huge guest awareness – most never know unless they ask. After all they’re here to spot cheetah and lion, not gain sainthood.

The project that intrigued and impressed me the most, however, was the installation of a biogas plant in Mama Sadera’s manyatta a few kilometres away.

The manyatta is a Masai village of huts, surrounded by a thick thorn-bush fence for protection, and with a paddock in the middle to keep precious cattle safe at night - and Mama Sadera is the not-so-elderly, Nokia-wielding village elder.

“Basically what we’ve done,” said 31-year-old Ariana Grammaticas, showing me round the simple biogas scheme (located just outside the thorn fence and which has now been running since 2006) “is rebuild a cow’s stomach.”

Every morning, after the cows are let back into the fields, the village women collect the cow dung, put it into what is effectively a big pot mostly buried underground, give it a good stir and add water - the resulting methane gas is siphoned into a digester and then piped into the homes of the 200 villagers.

The rich slurry that runs off is then sold back to Governors’ as high quality fertiliser.

Benefits have been immediate and obvious. Women - yes, always women - don’t have to cut down so much wood for fires (they still use some for heat) which means deforestation is slowed, while the very real risk of attack by buffalo or lion is lessened, and there is more time to make bead work to sell to tourists which brings in extra income.

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