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Going Green: Ecotourism Info
If you recognize that the exhortation "Go Green!" refers to ecotourism, or "green" travel - rather than to a vegetarian diet, say, or the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame - you're already a step ahead.
But if you're interested in becoming an ecotourist yourself, where do you turn next?
To "go green" is to join one of the fastest-growing parts of the travel business. In contrast to the stereotypical camera-wielding vacationers, descending like an army and trampling everything in sight (while leaving their bus parked nearby with the engine running), ecotravelers, it is often said in the industry, "leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but memories." An ecotour might consist of bird-watching in Scotland, working on a kibbutz in Israel or hiking the mountains in your own backyard.
Today, by some estimates, up to 7% of all tours originating in the U.S. are ecotours. And far from attracting just the young and hardy, ecotours get roughly one-fifth of their business from travelers age 55 and older. The trips seem to appeal to anyone seeking new travel experiences and a chance to learn from the journey.
"If you treat the land [and] people with respect and don't impose your ideas on them, you can gain from [your] visit," says 51-year-old Colorado physician Ken Richardson, a veteran of ecotours to East Africa, New Guinea and Fiji.
And as interest in traveling green has grown, so have the resources available to the budding or experienced ecotourist. Indeed, the multitude of books, magazines, travel guides and websites that now offer information about green travel can be daunting. Ask a web search engine to hunt for the word "ecotourism," and you're likely to turn up more than 500 matches.
Books
For both an overview of the ecotravel movement and some specific travel destinations, a good place to start is The Green Travel Guide by Greg Neale. Mr. Neale opens by making a case that the mainstream travel industry has done damage to societies both large and small. In Malaysia, he reports, fishing families on the island of Langkawi have been evicted from their homes to make way for hotels; in Bali, pollution from sewage is damaging coral reefs, leaving beaches vulnerable to erosion.
To learn to be a nondestructive tourist, Mr. Neale recommends first participating in ecotrips close to home: whale-watching off the California coast, or visiting the Anasazi cliff palaces in the desert Southwest. "If we learn to understand and appreciate our local environment," he writes, "we are more likely to protect it. Having done that, we will be more ready to maintain greener standards elsewhere."
As for where that elsewhere might be, Mr. Neale does make suggestions, backed by names, addresses and telephone numbers of tourist organizations around the globe. One favorite: In Senegal, "campements," a cross between a guest-house and a youth hostel, give visitors a $3-a-night glimpse of village life in West Africa. And because the campements are owned and operated by the villagers themselves, profits are re-invested locally - a key ecotourism concept.
The Green Travel Sourcebook: A Guide for the Physically Active, The Intellectually Curious or the Socially Aware, by Daniel Grotta and Sally Wiener Grotta, is another valuable reference. It includes guidelines, resources and travel tips for ecotourists of all types and budgets of all sizes.
The Grottas offer detailed suggestions - destinations, activities, travel organizations and programs - for each of the six categories of green travel that they identify: conservation trips; "physical" vacations, such as mountain climbing; "classroom" trips, led by naturalists, historians, professors and the like; "outreach" trips, in which travelers from different nations come together; "caring and sharing" tours, in which travelers help build homes or teach classes; and "reality" tours, which attempt to show travelers firsthand the political, social, environmental or economic conditions of a particular country or region.
The suggestions range from the familiar - the Audubon Society and the Sierra Club can both help plan trips - to the not-so-familiar, such as the Maine Photographic Workshop and the Archaeological Institute of America. There's even a chapter on green cruises.
One drawback: The book is beginning to show its age. Published in 1992, it doesn't include some of the newer organizations dedicated to green travel - or the growing number of websites.
Websites
The Ecotourism Society, of North Bennington, Vt., is widely regarded as the preeminent organization in the field. Its Web site is packed with information about the green-travel movement, tour operators, accommodations and ecotourism events.
For example, if you're looking for help choosing an ecotour operator, the site provides a list of questions to guide you. (Does the operator employ trained naturalists? Does the operator have a waste-management policy?) Or, if you want to learn about a particular ecotourism project, you can click on "Nuggets of Wisdom." There you can find, for example, a series of reports from the society's president, Megan Epler Wood, about the growing commercialization of Machu Picchu, the Inca ruins in southern Peru, and the exploitation of Quechewa Indian porters.
Conservation International is a nonprofit environmental group based in Washington, D.C. Its website is bright and full of news. There's information about top destinations and the ecotourism marketplace, trip ideas, and a few commercial stops where you can pick up books and travelers' gifts. People share tips on the site by sending in photos, book reviews, reports and trivia.
If it's tour operators you're after, a few clicks of the mouse ("Trip Planning," then "Adventure Finder," then "Browse") will reveal a list of about 75. To be listed on Conservation International's site, operators must complete a survey explaining how they minimize their tours' impact on the environment , and how they help channel some tour revenue from back into the local community.
You might also consider spending some time with the American Society of Travel Agents and with Partners in Responsible Tourism. ASTA is valuable for identifying travel agents who specialize in green travel. Click on "Travel Directory" and then on "Specialty" in the travel-agent slot. Then scroll down to "Ecotourism." PIRT has a strong emphasis on volunteerism - such as travelers helping build schools and homes in other countries. The site is updated only infrequently.
Tour Operators
International Expeditions in Helena, Ala., (800-346-4872) is one of the oldest - and one of the best - in the business. Just ask the World Wildlife Fund, the National Wildlife Federation and the Nature Conservancy, which are among the organizations that have asked the company to set up programs for their members.
A leader in uniting green travel and conservation efforts, International Expeditions specializes in trips to Africa and Central and South America. Consider its 10-day tour of Belize: Participants (after leaving Miami) visit the country's rain forests, its ancient caves, its barrier reef and its Mayan ruins - all under the tutelage of the company's own team of naturalists, archaeologists and educators.
Proceeds from the tour are plowed back into the local economy: The guides and drivers that augment International Expeditions' staff are hired from the local area, and contributions are made to Belize's Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary. To learn more, visit the company's website at www.ietravel.com. Wildland Adventures in Seattle (800-345-4453) emphasizes "field experience," according to its president, Curt Kutay. That means, in part, the almost-exclusive use of local guides to lead the company's trips.
And not just "professional" guides. For example, in Kenya, where Wildland Adventures has secured the permission of a Masai village for its travelers to camp on Masai land, the company doesn't employ, say, an educated resident of Nairobi to conduct the tour. Rather, a Masai tribesman acts as a guide. The tribesman, in turn, takes visitors to his village where they can rest in a boma (a mud-and-thatch hut) and listen to Masai elders and children talk about their lives and culture. There is no better way, Mr. Kutay says, to "create authenticity." The company's Web site is
www.wildland.com.
Two other candidates to consider: Wilderness Travel in Berkeley, Calif., and Nature Expeditions International in Tucson, Ariz. In addition to its core business of arranging trips around the world for groups of a dozen or so, Wilderness Travel (800-247-6700) also designs what it calls "big projects." Later this year, for instance, the company will take about 150 people to Turkey for "Eclipse Summer '99" - a chance to observe a total eclipse of the sun, coupled with activities that include sailing, archaeology tours and mountain treks.
Nature Expeditions (800-869-0639) estimates that 75% of its clients are age 55 and older. Started as a college-lecture series, Nature Expeditions still has an academic style; tour leaders include geologists, biologists, naturalists and locally prominent people. Make a trip to Easter Island and your leader likely will be the Chilean territory's former governor. Their Web sites, respectively, are www.wildernesstravel.com and
www.naturexp.com.
©1999 Reprinted from the Dow Jones & Company, Inc. From The Wall Street Journal, 03/08/1999.
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