What is Ecotourism?
Ecotourism is about relationships and learning and genuine experience. It is not something that can be consumed. Genuine ecotourism experiences are life changing and it is the goal of Green Bug Adventures to help you to design a life changing adventure that supports your personal values and goals. Ecotourism combines facets of tourism that include nature tourism, responsible travel, ethical travel, cultural tourism and conservation. The defining principles for Green Bug Adventures are that local individuals and communities need to profit from tourism while maintaining their culture and environmental resources. It is our vision that tourism can be a win-win collaboration and a fair exchange between the traveler and the destination community. This mutual exchange will ideally include learning and friendship as well as money.
Historically African tourism focused on Safaris run by foreign companies, led by foreign guides and lodged in foreign establishments with profits deposited in foreign bank accounts. It is not hard to see that the local people did not benefit from this (and still in some cases don’t with a number of the Safari companies of East Africa). This practice of exploitive tourism has resulted in local resentment toward tourism and the destruction of conservation areas by tourism companies with more of an interest in profits than in communities and conservation.
At Green Bug Adventures we consider Africa’s people and culture to be Africa’s greatest resources secondary to the abundance of wild life and natural beauty. This is why we insist upon working with local companies and indigenous projects and cultures whenever possible. Transparency – with our customers and with our African partners and vendors – is another value of Green Bug Adventures. In the interest of transparency, we want you to know how your money will be used. At least 75% of the cost of your trip will be spent directly in the country you are visiting and as much as possible will go directly to individuals and small businesses. The remainder will be invested in growing this company and promoting these experiences to potential travelers like you.
Green Bug Adventures is being built from the bottom up with Ecotourism as the primary focus. We are investing the time and effort to find the best lodging providers, guides/tour operators and destinations that fit into our standards of Ecotourism. In the process we are establishing standards that reflect our organizational values for evaluating these providers. This is also an area where we need your help and feedback. Please review our company values and let us know what you think of them and then when you use one of our providers, please give us your feedback. You can read more about how we make our decisions in each subsequent section below and in even more detail with the links provided. We strive to apply the same high expectations to ourselves and our travelers. We use 100% recycled paper for printed promotional materials like catalogs and brochures. We minimize ink wastage and avoid throw-away printer ink cartridges. We encourage our customers to use the electronic version of our catalogs, brochures and pre and post departure information to save on paper and the resources that go into recycling. We provide orientation material on how make your vacation friendly to the environment and the country that you will be visiting. These include ways to save water, to be respectful and to honor local culture and traditions, and how to leave nothing but foot prints and take only amazing photographs and responsibly produced local, sustainable souvenirs. But don’t worry. Our goal is not to make you feel guilty or to overwhelm you with green ideology while on your vacation. Providing you with unforgettable experiences of a lifetime is our mission.
Social Responsibility:
- We use locally owned services for our travelers whenever possible.
- At least 75% of your trip cost (excluding airfare) is spent in the country of your destination.
- We evaluate all service providers and only work with only those companies and individuals that meet our standards for Ecotourism.
- Each of the companies we work with must give back to the community in some way.
- The companies that we work with pay competitive wages and employ fair hiring practices.
- All of our guides live in the local community and know the culture, traditions, and ways of respectfully and responsibly interacting with locals. Our guides have been trained in communication and are comfortable discussing the delicate issues of cultural sensitivity.
- We give back to our community in the US through volunteering.
- We also give back to the African communities that we work with through donations and support of social programs.
Environmental Responsibility:
- We use 100% recycled products for promotional materials.
- We have eliminated waste of print cartridges and ink with our printing systems.
- We use electronic documents and books whenever possible to avoid printing materials.
- We work with lodging and guides that promote environmental responsibility, and encourage their guests to minimize their impact.
- We teach our travelers how to leave only footprints, take only pictures and sustainable souvenirs.
- We evaluate every lodging provider and tour provider’s environmental policy to make sure that it meets our standards. We provide them with consultation on ways to make their operations more eco-friendly.
- We take our guests to wonderful natural destinations and emphasis the need to protect these areas for future generations.
- We limit the size of tours to no more than 8 individuals to protect the delicate natural areas that we visit.
Conservation:
- We provide transparent information about the carbon cost of travel and we encourage our customers to off-set this impact. Rather than offering traditional carbon offsets, we provide the opportunity for customers to donate that amount of money to conservation projects in the area they visit during their trip. To facilitate this, a voluntary carbon cost of the trip is included in the itemized invoice for the trip along with options for local conservation projects and Green Bug will facilitate the transfer of funds to the selected project. We believe in global climate change but believe it is more important to protect the existing biospher as it offers a higher level of carbon storage than new plantings.
- We work with companies that support conservation and work with communities to show the importance of conservation to their future and the economic connection between conservation, tourism and local economic development.
- We donate 1% of our profits each year to worldwide conservation projects.
- We also make donations and promote the conservation of areas that we visit and travel to.
