Today I would like to talk about
travellers and travelling.
Most of the time, travelling is
associate to a possible threat to natural environments and local communities of
a country rather than something beneficial.
G Adventures seems to make
the difference.
This travel company for over 25 years not only helped travellers
to integrate travelling into the different cultures but it also sustained local
communities while doing that. After the firsts successes in 2003,
Mr Bruce Poon Tip founder of G Adventures, established a non-profit
organization called "Planeterra Foundation". The aim of this company
is to invest the donations they collect from travellers into development
projects, in the last 15 years they have been able to support different
businesses from healthcare to conservation.
In Nairobi
in Kenya, for instance, G Adventures Safari Central cooperated with Café’
Ubuntu. Together they planted trees during the Earth Weeks and now this café’
supports Special needs' schools and local women whose children are living with
disabilities.
Among the various projects
Planeterra is developing there is also one in Guneysinir,
in Turkey. This area is particularly dry
and between July and September, and the average rainfall is less than 10mm.
Accordingly with recent researches on the territory, it resulted that the
population is growing and the limited agriculture resources of the natural
environment are unable to feed the population.
Considering characteristics of
this land, it has been found out that almond orchards are the best trees to
plants in order to optimize the water retention. When travelling with G Adventures in Guneysinir, there will be the
chance to plant some trees in the orchard. Tourists will have the opportunity
to visit the park, interact with the local residents and learn further about
the project. This almond plantation provides sheds for people, improves water retention in the soil and the selling of almonds is a source of income.
“This
project was inspired by conversations with G Advenutres' field staff and the
residents participating in the home stay experience. The goal is to provide an
opportunity for travellers to spend time in a community park and contribute to
a budding social enterprise. With the help of the local municipality, we
identified a 10,000 sq.m. plot of land that is perfectly suited for this type
of multi-year development project.” <https://planeterra.org/what-we-do/our-projects/turkey-almond-cooperative/>
I got to know G Adventures during my University time when I
attended a convention held by mr Poon Tip here in London. I found very inspiring this
new way of looking at tourism as a resource rather than as something harmful.
I firmly believe there should be more initiatives like this, the
world is one and it is an unique place: we need to take good care of it.
