Climb Kilimanjaro, Rongai Route
How this holiday makes a difference
Environment
By choosing this route not only will you avoid the crowds on the busy Machame and Marangu routes but also help to limit the over exhaustion of the mountain’s natural resources.
On Kilimanjaro, like any other mountain, we do not believe in taking shortcuts. Without compromise, all cooking is on kerosene stoves rather than wood fires and all rubbish is carried off the mountain. Unfortunately it is possible to cut corners on Kilimanjaro by rushing the time spent on the ascent to save on expensive park fees and porter fees. It is our careful attention to the treatment of our local staff that makes us stand out from other tour operators. We pay one of the highest salaries in full immediately on exit from the National Park and ensure that they are well supplied with food, fuel and tents.
The natural landscapes we explore are some of the richest, often most challenging, yet at the same time some of the most fragile environments on earth. With education, experienced leadership and appropriate equipment and techniques, it is possible to travel responsibly through these regions. For us, it is critically important that such wilderness travel experiences do not diminish the natural values of the environment.
Our environmental sustainable principles: True sustainability is a guiding aspect in all aspects of our business planning and operations. Specifically our tour operations should be managed in a way where the natural and cultural values of the host region are undiminished in the long-term.
Where possible, we engage in partnerships with local environmental groups and/or land managers to actively campaign for conservation or promote environmental protection and/or rehabilitation.
Our Responsible Travel Guidebook: Our philosophy since 1975 has been to leave only footprints and take only photographs. To reiterate this, every customer who travels with us receives a copy of our award-winning Responsible Travel guidebook. This detailed book outlines our environmentally sustainable principles, and outlines how each customer can minimize their impact while travelling.
Global Warming and Carbon Balancing: The root cause of Global Warming is society's dependence on emission creating fossil fuel. Planting trees is not going to reverse this trend or cancel our carbon emissions very quickly or effectively. We believe the way to reduce these dependencies is to create clean energy production. Therefore, we support renewable energy projects like wind and solar power, and we are aligned with Climate Friendly, the gold standard setter in effective, meaningful action addressing climate change. So, while we believe that tree planting can play a small role in greenhouse gas abatement, we have gone the extra mile in promoting a longer term solution. Is this cheap? No. Is it responsible? Absolutely!
Community
Our aspiring young porters are trained and empowered with the skills that they need to develop to become guides themselves and this includes current work towards setting up a language school. Our young guides in the making we call Summit Porters and have made use of their eagerness to gain high mountain experience by sending them up for training while at the same time co-ordinating a very much needed cleaning effort on the high reaches of the mountain where the local park rangers are ever more reluctant to venture.
Our responsible travel principles: Our company aims to maximise the positive benefits of tourism for host communities. This includes training and employment of local staff, using local suppliers and assisting in the development of sustainable local businesses.
We actively minimise the negative effects that tourism can have by ensuring that tourism does not divert resources away from local communities or drive up prices on local resources.
We provide opportunities for real cultural exchange, where locals and visitors alike can share and learn from each other in an environment of mutual respect.
We contribute to the welfare of the host community. This is epitomised in our Community Project Travel program where we organise for our travellers to spend time in disadvantaged villages upgrading basic facilities such as health, education and water access.
We strive to educate our travellers about the destination and its local cultures as well as providing guidelines on appropriate behaviour to minimise impact.
No local payments policy: Local cash payments are becoming increasingly popular with many operators in the adventure travel industry. This policy seems to benefit the tour operators more than the local economies or the travellers, as it avoids local taxes and transfers the costs and risks of cash handling onto the travellers. In accordance with our Responsible Travel practices, we have chosen a policy of not asking for such payments.
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