Green travel ideas from two environmentally conscious travelers

Voluntourism as a form of specialty travel is still very much in its infancy, and new definitions keep popping up faster than you can keep up.

This is why many people with an urge to learn more and a fuzzy notion of doing something good are looking towards travel companies like Inside/Out Adventures.

Specifically, we’re talking about Inside/Out’s Humanitourism projects in Greece. The company says it came up with the concept of Humanitourism™ to bridge the gap between volunteer vacations and active adventure travel.

It also helps, of course, that Inside/Out makes use of sustainable and responsible travel practices.

Right now, they’re putting together a sea turtle volunteer adventure on the Greek island of Zakynthos, in association with Earth Sea Sky, a conservation organization working to protect the endangered critters.

Zakynthos is the primary nesting grounds for the endangered Mediterranean Loggerhead Sea Turtle.  The project work will focus on the construction of a sea turtle rehabilitation center on the island, monitoring sea turtle nesting activity and a beach clean. 

Inside/out’s tour will also include additional volunteer work at the Archelon Sea Turtle Rescue Center in Athens.

As for the adventure vacation part of it, there’s a trek up Mt. Skopos, snorkeling and a 2-day catamaran sailing tour.

You can learn how to sail and navigate a boat through the islands of the Ionian Sea, or just sit back and enjoy the sea and the glorious weather.

Any which way you look at it - the joy of travel, learning to do new things, helping save and protect endangered species - it beats flopping around on summer vacation in a beach resort pool like a… turtle.   

Photo by Live Zakynthos

Before I get to the substance of my post, I want to remind our readers that today is Blog Action Day, an annual event when thousands of bloggers get together to weigh in on the same topic. This year, the topic is the environment. Well done, selection committee! We’re all too happy to participate.

OK, so now let me explain my post title. I was intrigued a couple of weeks ago to see that Ecuador had used the Clinton Global Initiative as a forum to announce their plans NOT to drill for one billion barrels of proven oil reserves in Yasuni National Park in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

The announcement was a fascinating and quite unexpected commitment from a country that could really use those oil dollars. President Correa of Ecuador announced that they would commit investment to renewable energy instead, and then the last sentence of the press release reads: “The plan also includes promotion of ecotourism and sustainable development for Ecuador’s Amazonian region.”

I have two reactions to this:

1) Wow. If Ecuador, a country that has a per capita income of 4,500 can look past it’s immediate economic needs and toward a more sustainable long-term growth model, why can’t we do the same thing in the U.S. - where per-capita wealth is more than 10 times larger? I mean, seriously!

2) More importantly, I think this story is all about travel, and the press release buried the lede. Ecuador sees an opportunity to expand on its already substantial ecotourism business and become the Costa Rica of South America with both a strong nature-based tourism draw and a significant portfolio of renewable energy. And to get back to my creative terminology, this is the “sticky green residue” left behind by all of those tourists who visited the Galapagos recently. I say “sticky,” because all those tourist dollars spent in Ecuador over the years have lodged in the mind of government officials and made them realize that they have too much to lose if they permit drilling to go forward.

Here’s a concrete example of how travel can make a net positive impact on the world’s environment.

So don’t be ashamed for taking that overseas trip. Find those “simple green choices” that you can make to reduce your travel’s environmental impact, but also take heart that you could be doing the world a lot of good by making other countries appreciate the power of the tourist dollar. That might just be the incentive they need to conserve their natural resources.

Disagree with me about Ecuador’s oil or the benefits of tourism? Leave a comment below or send us an e-mail at simplegreenchoices@gmail.com.