Friends of Usambara

Based in the highland town of Lushoto, Friends of Usambara was established in 1997 as a grassroots cultural tourism enterprise committed to conserving the Eastern Arc Mountains. Renowned for its rich biodiversity and endemic flora, the West Usambaras offer a dramatic landscape of terraced valleys, misty montane forests, and sheer escarpments overlooking the Maasai steppe.

Guided walking, trekking and cycling tours take travellers into traditional Shambaa villages, fertile spice farms, and ancient forest reserves like Mazumbai. Twenty percent of all tour profits directly fund community-led environmental programmes, from school environmental clubs to large-scale native tree nurseries that have planted millions of trees across local watersheds.