Members Practising Sustainable Tourism

In 2018, we will ask each trekker booked onto a trip with us to pick up one kilogram of rubbish. During 2018 we will have approximately 200 trekkers travelling with one of our groups in Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan and India and we will therefore pick up at least 200kg of litter.

"Take nothing but pictures. Leave nothing but footprints.” This is part of the Leave No Trace philosophy encouraging people to minimise their environmental impact when exploring the great outdoors. At The Mountain Company we want to go further by picking up rubbish found along the trekking trails and around the campsites. We have received client feedback that rubbish is a big problem and this unsightly mess has detracted from their holiday experience. By picking up litter this activity will make the environment cleaner and will help to maintain the natural beauty of the Himalaya and Karakoram mountains.

• Our groups will talk to others to explain what they are doing aiming to inspire more trekkers to pick up rubbish too.
• Our long-term goal is to make this the standard procedure for all our groups.

Journey Latin America currently supports The LATA Foundation, a UK-based charity that supports grassroots social and environmental projects throughout Latin America. These projects are carefully chosen and always aim to relieve poverty through sustainable development and environmental conservation. Over the past 10 years the Foundation has upheld this aim through a number of different initiatives. Projects supported include the provision of clean drinking water fountains to schools around Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, free dental care for hundreds of children in the ‘villas’ of Buenos Aires and the planting of more than 30,000 native trees in the Sacred Valley of Peru by local communities. The Foundation is also able to support emergency relief to affected areas through working with trusted local organisations.

• The projects are usually located in areas where tourism is high and fall into four categories:
• Education and training
• Health
• Community development
• Conservation

Undiscovered Destinations is supporting Fonkoze, Haiti’s leading microfinance institution, to help empower Haitians—primarily women—to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. We aim to raise $1,500 during 2018 that will directly support their ‘Staircase Out of Poverty’ initiative, a comprehensive, four step approach uniquely designed to provide women with the resources and support needed to ascend from poverty. More information on the four steps is all available at https://fonkoze.org/.

Undiscovered Destinations decided on this pledge because it aligns with our business values and Haiti is a country we have very close links with. By helping us to make this donation, our customers will be able to assist people like Saincia on their journey out of poverty. Read about Saincia climb up the staircase here https://fonkoze.org/saincia.html

Over the past few years Pure Crete’s representatives have noticed an increasing amount of customers asking where they should take their refuse to be recycled. Our holiday houses do not have recycling bins and our customers are used to recycling back home so they find this unusual.
In 2018 Pure Crete has therefore decided to reduce the amount of landfill waste its customers produce by introducing recycling bins into our holiday houses. We aim to increase the recycling by 80% in 50% of our properties by providing them with one bin for plastics, card and tin, and one bin for glass.
Pure Crete will inform individual house owners what the bins are for and explain our intentions and goal. There are recycling points in local villages and towns. We will ask the owners to empty the designated recycle bins there once full. If this is a problem our local staff will offer to assist.
In addition we will design an information sheet in each house for our clients with instructions on how they should dispose of their waste and some information about AITO PROTECT. We will report on our results at the end of October 2018.
By helping us to recycle more waste our customers will be directly involved in reducing landfill on Crete. We hope this will contribute to the enjoyment of our customers’ holiday by giving them a sense of giving something back to the environment of the destination they have visited and enjoyed.

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Travelling in more remote and unspoilt places often means not being able to drink the local water, so travellers often rely on bottled water. While this can be inexpensive and readily available, many destinations don’t have recycling programmes and as such are left with vast amounts of plastic waste that is either sent to landfill or strewn about the countryside.

This is an issue that concerns RWH’s clients and staff because who wants to see a natural beauty spot blighted by litter? So, to help matters we have teamed up with a UK based company called Water to Go to promote the use of a re-usable filtered water bottle that allows travellers to safely drink from local sources without creating more plastic waste. In 2017/18 we aim to sell 1000 reusable bottles at a discounted price. By using one of these filtered bottles on a week holiday, one person alone could save between 14-21 plastic bottles. With every 100 reusable bottles sold, that’s between 1400-2100 bottles!

We will highlight the benefits of these reusable bottles to our clients by providing information at the Adventure Show, Destinations, 50+ travel shows, in over 55 000 brochure mailings and on our website. Water to Go will make a donation to our own staff led charity, Heart & Sole, for each bottle sold. We will then use these funds to support projects around the world, such as a school breakfast club in St Lucia and providing needed items to an orphanage in Costa Rica.

• Reducing plastic waste
• Kinder to the environment
• Promoting sustainable water use
• A benefit to travellers in remote regions

We love Scotland’s wild places and so do our customers. At Wilderness Scotland we understand the powerful sense of exhilaration and awe that these places can evoke. We also recognise the environmental sensitivity of these places and strive to do everything we can to preserve them for future generations.
In 2017, we plan to build on the success of our past Customer Contribution Scheme and create a “Wilderness Future Fund”. This will be an annual fund created by increasing the voluntary contribution from £5 to £10 per person.
Rather than simply donating the money to a conservation charity and letting them choose how the money is spent Wilderness Scotland want to direct the fund towards specific local environmental and community projects, ensuring that we are closely involved in how, and where, the money is spent.
We pledge to support two projects each year, one environmental and one social. We predict that £6,000 of donations will be available in the first year with increases predicted in following years. Every customer who contributes to the fund in 2017 will therefore be directly helping us to fulfil this pledge.
We plan to support different projects each year and to grow our fund so that over time we can help a variety of projects. Together with our customers, we will be investing in the future of Scotland’s wild places and helping to ensure that future generations can also experience these incredible wild lands.

• Protecting Scotland's wilderness for future generations.
• Increasing our voluntary contribution to £10 per person.
• Creating a fund that can be directed to specific projects.
• Taking control over how funds are allocated.

Amongst the 450+ wildlife holidays that we operate around the world each year, around 20 focus on butterflies. Here in the UK and across the globe the habitats that these endearing insects need are becoming increasingly fragile with constant pressures from the ever-developing world we live in. We want to do our utmost to help protect and manage these habitats which will not only benefit butterflies but the ecosystem as a whole.

In 2017 Naturetrek will invest 10% of all income generated from our butterfly-focused holidays to the charity Butterfly Conservation. This aim in year one is to protect and effectively manage an area of the Chilterns specifically to allow the threatened Duke of Burgundy butterfly to expand its range. This work will greatly reduce the risk of further local extinctions hence ensuring this beautiful butterfly can thrive in this area. We will be funding different projects each year focusing on protecting and correctly managing habitats for different butterfly species, whilst ensuring that under Butterfly Conservation’s expert stewardship a great range of other species will also benefit. Each participant on our butterfly holidays will also receive a year’s membership to the charity, giving them the opportunity for further learning and inspiration on the conservation of butterflies. With this commitment, our Naturetrek customers will be helping to ensure that vital butterfly habitats are protected across the UK and Europe for the enjoyment of all.

• We are supporting Butterfly Conservation via dedicated butterfly-focused tours.
• 10% of tour income will be donated to the charity each year.
• Projects in 2017 include management of The Chilterns for conservation of the Duke of Burgundy.

Seeing the ‘Big 5’ is one of the main reasons our travellers want to go to Africa. Rhinos are one of the most iconic species of the 5 but some species are critically endangered.

Expert Africa wants to play its part in conserving this incredible animal by working with Save the Rhino. We also aim to bring benefits to those living alongside these magnificent animals.
In 2017, we will begin a partnership with Little Indaba, a women’s group in Lusaka, Zambia that produces and sells organic cotton animal toys. A selection of these are sold via Save the Rhino and a percentage of the sales support rhino conservation locally and globally.
Expert Africa pledges £5,000 to help financially support Little Indaba. We will also contribute our time, in terms of business expertise and marketing support. We aim to help grow the group’s business sustainably, enabling them to reach more local women. Ultimately, this will raise more funds for the women themselves and more investments for Save the Rhino’s vital conservation work.

We also pledge to make a financial contribution of around £15,000 throughout 2018 to community-based projects linked with different aspects of conservation in Botswana, Namibia and Tanzania, which are some of the countries most visited by our travellers.

We will actively promote these projects to our travellers, online and via social media. Increasing our own knowledge of conservation efforts in our key destinations will enable us to provide a better service, and also play a part in safeguarding the preservation of these wonderful species.