How Green Is Your Trip?

How Green Is Your Trip?

Lots of tours say they are environmentally correct. Not all of them are.

The term “ecotour” is about as widely abused as the term “fat-free”. Yet the ecotourism industry is exploding as citizens of the world become environmentally conscious. Indeed, a Cond/ Nast Travele survey recently found that more than 45 million Americans said they were likely to take an ecotour within the next three years. So how do responsible travelers ensure that their tour is environmentally friendly? The following tips are an amalgamation of the advice of environmental travel journalists who have sought to answer just that question.

What you can do?

Seek a tour that educates: Guides should be knowledgeable about the destination: wildlife and history, lectures and slideshows, videos and social networks, everything should be an inherent part of the trip.

Don't disturb the wildlife: Take only pictures, and leave only footprints. Remain on marked pathways and be particularly cautious around fragile systems such as coral reefs, mosses, and lichens.

Practice low-impact travel: Avoid littering of any kind, and make sure your tour operatio has made provisions to carry back garbage generated by the trip.

Red Ara from Costa Rica. Photo by Elena.

What tour operators can do?

Support indigenous peoples: Especially in disadvantaged areas, they should utilize local businesses, employ indigenous peoples, make financial contributions to local conservation activities.

Build in harmony with the land: Hotels and lodges should use local materials to blend with the land around them.

Home and away, boycott these:

Coral and sea turtle products – Including jewelry, eggs, skin cream.

Most reptile skins – Particularly those from Latin America, the Caribbean, China, Egypt.

Products made of Pangolin: Pangolin is another word for anteater.

Ivory – Especially worked ivory from elephants and from marine mammals, such as whaltes, walruses, narwhals.

Birds: All live birds, as well as any wild bird feathers and skins used in or as artwork (including mounted birds).

Fur: Particularly that of spotted cats such as the snow leopard or jaguar.

Love, Ecostyle

Ecotraveler Magazine's favorite spots to protect the earth and get a good start on your marriage – not necessarily in that order: Nassau, Bahamas and Uvita, Costa Rica.