The Chumbe Island Coral Park is a private nature reserve developed and managed by the Chumbe Island Coral Park Ltd. (CHICOP). It is a rare example of a still pristine coral island ecosystem in an otherwise heavily over-fished and over-exploited area. The reserve includes a reef sanctuary, which has become the first gazetted marine park in Tanzania, and a forest reserve.
After several years of campaigning by CHICOP the fringing reef West of Chumbe Island was officially closed in October 1992. Since then, it has been protected by marine park rangers deployed and trained by CHICOP. On the 24th of December 1994 the Zanzibar Government also gazetted the reef as the "Chumbe Reef Sanctuary". With this Chumbe had become the first marine park in Tanzania.

At Chumbe Island Coral Park you will stay in wonderfully build Eco-bungalows, which give you both privacy and the feeling of living in the open. All bungalows overlook the sea with just a 30 second walk to the beach and reef.
Each bungalow has a palm-thatched roof and comes equipped with a double or twin beds in the sleeping area, a bathroom with hot and cold showers, a large living room with handmade furniture, African art, and colorful fabrics, and your own personal hammocks.
Perhaps the most fabulous part of Chumbe Island Coral Park is that there are only seven bungalows ? and there will not ever be any more ? ensuring this tropical paradise will never feel crowded whether they are fully booked or not. This also leaves room for plenty of personalized service from the staff.

There are plenty of activities waiting for you on and around Chumbe Island ? so be sure to allocate enough time here. The whole of Chumbe Island is a nature reserve and you may explore its beauties either under the competent guidance of park rangers or on your own with the help of laminated cards and leaflets available.
Prices include everything but alcoholic drinks ? so take advantage! Park fees, park ranger services like forest walks, guided
snorkeling in the reef, climbing the historic lighthouse, etc. And, if you're not quite sure about your snorkeling skills: they'll show you how to do it - for free, of course.
As there has been no fishing in this Reef Sanctuary for the last seven years, the reef has returned to a state of pristineness, which nowadays is rare in the world and probably unique in East Africa.
When the tide is out, walk along the beach all around the island and look into little pools and crevices in the rocks. You?ll see juvenile fishes and a myriad of crabs, shellfishes, starfishes, oysters and other invertebrates. Or explore the footpath leading down into a large intertidal pool overgrown with mangroves and shaded by huge baobab trees where the seawater rises and falls with the tides and many creatures specialized to these conditions can be observed.

Dine under the impressive roof of the visitor's center, which overlooks the sea between Zanzibar and Tanganyika. Here you will enjoy a mouth-watering mixture of Zanzibarian, Arabic, Indian and African cuisine, sure to satisfy both vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike.

In the early 1990's a German woman, Ms Sibylle Riedmiller, decided to campaign for a Marine Protected Area in Zanzibar to counter the serious erosion and destruction from over-fishing and careless tourism. The location was a small, uninhabited island situated 8 miles off the coast of Zanzibar (Unguja), called Chumbe Island. Chumbe was selected because when studied, it was found to be host to an incredibly bio-diverse reef system; so much so that one expert from the Great Barrier Reef in Australia described the Chumbe reef as "...one of the most spectacular coral gardens to be found anywhere in the world." In 1994 the Government of Zanzibar gazetted the island as a Protected Area, making Chumbe Island the first, and only Private Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the world.
Chumbe Island Coral Park (CHICOP) is the management company responsible for managing the MPA, which was established and founded by Ms. Sibylle Riedmiller. She was the investor in the infrastructure of the entire project. Her investment was in the form of an interest free loan, with all profit being put back into the project to run the non-commercial components (the various research projects, the education programs for local schoolchildren, etc). Therefore, once established, the Project relied on its own funds for the management of the MPA (unlike nearly all conservation initiatives in Africa, which rely on politically entangled Aid and Donor assistance). The Chumbe revenue is generated through closely managed eco-tourism.
However, unlike many other tourist ventures, Chumbe is special, as visitors to the island must, by definition of a protected area, have ZERO impact on the environment. Therefore on Chumbe unique eco-bungalows have been developed in which the guests stay. These were all built with state of the art eco-architecture and eco-technology (solar water heating, solar photovoltaic electricity, rainwater catchment systems, gray water filtration and compost toilets). These bungalows are so revolutionary in the field of eco-design that Chumbe was chosen to represent Tanzania at the EXPO2000 in Germany, where a bungalow was re-constructed. As there are only 7 eco-bungalows, numbers of guests are limited; in itself a component to ensure that impact on the island environment is avoided.

On December 24,1994 the Zanzibar Government gazetted the Chumbe Island coral reef as the "Chumbe Reef Sanctuary". With this Chumbe had become the first marine park in Tanzania.

Chumbe Island Coral Park was the winner of the 2000 UNEP Global 500 Award for Environmental Achievement.

There is no fresh water source in the rocky ground of Chumbe Island. So they collect rainwater from the roof during the rainy season, pass it through a natural filter and store it in spacious underground cisterns (under the living room). The water is then pumped up through a solar-powered heating system into hot & cold water containers for the shower.

The water from the showers is recycled through plant beds so that no polluted water will seep into the Reef Sanctuary. These beds are planted with species that are demanding in water and nutrients, and therefore welcome the shower water rich in nitrates and phosphates.

Due to the prohibition of fishing around Chumbe Island for 7 years, all sea creatures have become very unconcerned about those few humans moving around. While snorkeling there, you will be sure to see the regulars:

* a couple of batfishes who have developed the habit to follow snorkelers at close range all along the reef (out of cursiosity?)
* Oscar, the 1m potato grouper living in a cave about 5m deep.
* Louise, a resident hawksbill turtle regularly feeding on the reef. If you imitate the slowly flapping movements of her front flippers with your arms while keeping your legs still, she may allow you to accompany her for a long time without showing signs of disturbance
* large bluespotted stingrays, apparently believing they are invisible when hiding under a thin layer of sand. Well, they are not ...
* schools of dolphins passing by to feed on abundant fish
* and many, many more!

How do I get there?
Boat departure times to Chumbe Island are 10:00 a.m. (and sometimes also 5:00 p.m.) from the beach of the Mbweni Ruins Hotel. This is included in the all-inclusive price. Extra boats can be arranged for US$50, and you can also be picked up from the Airport, port or town hotels for US$10.