Why Vultures Matter
Under the slogan "Birds for Birds", the Crete2Cape rally supported BirdLife International (BLI) in their programme to save African vultures from extinction. Although culturally unpopular, vultures fulfil a crucial role in the African ecosystem.
Vultures provide essential ecosystem services: they rapidly consume carcasses, preventing the spread of diseases such as anthrax, rabies, and botulism. By cleaning the landscape, they reduce populations of other scavengers that can transmit pathogens to livestock and humans. Their decline across Africa threatens both ecological balance and public health.
Several African vulture species have suffered catastrophic population drops in recent decades — driven by poisoning, habitat loss, and collisions with power infrastructure. BirdLife International works across the continent to monitor populations, advocate for policy change, and engage local communities in conservation.
The VintageAirRally brought visibility to this cause as its vintage aircraft traced the length of Africa, flying over landscapes where these birds once soared in abundance.
Beyond the flying itself, the Vintage Air Rally from Crete to Cape Town carries a conservation thread running alongside the five-week journey. Flying vintage aeroplanes of the 1920s and later decades, crews trace a route across plains, highlands and coastline, and the charity element gives that adventure a longer legacy. The rally has drawn attention to endangered African species, supporting programmes devoted to habitat protection and wildlife recovery, so the aircraft become a travelling platform for environmental awareness as much as a recreation of a pioneering era of flight that once followed similar footsteps.