Ecotourism & Responsible Travel
How We Travel: The Guidelines for all Gondwana Ecotours
Travel Is An Opportunity For Personal And Collective Fulfillment, Building Connections And Driving Creativity.
Achieving These Goals Requires Responsibility, Sustainability And Respect Throughout Planning And Implementation. These Principles Guide Us Towards Those Goals.
1) Recognize That Travel Has Substantial Impacts
Recognize Our Impact And Agency
We recognize that travel has substantial impacts on the environment, the ecosystems that we visit, as well as the local communities, economies and development. We further recognize our role in understanding and affecting those impacts and seek always to improve both our understanding and our impact.
That’s why we examine all elements of our trips and operations for their impact on the environment, culture, society, economy and development and how we affect all the forms of capital that we interact with (natural, human, physical, and economic).
2) Goods, Products & Services We Use Don’t Begin Or End With Us
Minimize Use, Waste And Impact
All of the goods, products and services we use along the way don’t begin or end with us. They required energy and resources to produce and deliver, and usually enter the waste stream. For these reasons, we “reduce, reuse and recycle” in that order. For impacts we can’t mitigate we purchase carbon offsets to make every trip carbon neutral.
3) Sustainability Starts With You
Personal Health And Wellness Are Key
Sustainability starts with you. Finding balance in ourselves is difficult but often a prerequisite for other forms of success. That’s why we offer programs on health and wellness including workshops and activities to support good nutrition, fitness, mindfulness and more. Additionally we strive to always serve gourmet, fresh, local and organic meals and have top of the line spa treatments available – our short cut to relaxation. We hope to send every client home feeling rejuvenated and with new tools to maintain that balance in their day-to-day life.
4) Respect & Empower Local Communities
Responsible Tourism
Tourism plays a substantial role in local communities. Responsible tourism includes local stakeholders in decisions and processes that will affect their lives and is always respectful of local custom and culture. To fulfill and promote this principle we provide opportunities to engage and interact with stakeholders in the community: students, small farmers, and more.
5) Preserve Ecosystems For Future Generations
Support The Destinations We Visit
Stewardship and responsibility are especially important when visiting sensitive ecosystems as we often do. Our objective is to preserve all of the sites we visit for the enjoyment and enrichment of future generations. To do that we engage in conservation through educational opportunities, trip activities, and actions we take as a company. We also always look for ways to give back to the destinations we enjoy through support for local causes.
6) Be Tolerant & Embrace Diversity
Maintain A Process That Is Inclusive Of All People
Diversity is essential to healthy systems. In all our actions and activities we seek to be always tolerant and embrace diversity – diversity of experience, perspective, interests and abilities. We provide ADA accessible options on our trips and do our best to accommodate every special request and need.
7) Always Improve & Seek Better Understanding
Seek To Understand & Improve Our Impact
Sustainability is defined by complexity. We recognize the limits of our understanding and seek to always improve our understanding and our impact. To that end we keep an open dialogue and invite you to join the conversation!