Bird watching holiday in Chile
How this holiday makes a difference
Environment
We have carefully selected accommodations with a clear environmental policy. GEN Suite Hotel & Spa is Santiago’s first green hotel. Its architectural design involved sustainability measures such as the use of renewable energies, including solar panels in most of the rooms to generate electricity. The establishment has an environmental policy and applies best practices in its operations. Staff and guests are encouraged to contribute to the hotel’s recycling efforts and on each floor there are storage facilities to separate rubbish accordingly. The property is also a certified member of the “One tourist, One tree” campaign launched jointly by CONAF (the Chilean government agency in charge of protected areas) and the Trekking Chile Foundation to compensate for greenhouse gas generation caused by a guest’s average travel.
Cascada de Las Animas is owned and managed by a local Chilean family with a long history in the Maipo Canyon. Through six generations, the Astorga Moreno clan has cared for and protected these lands since 1840. Currently the Nature Sanctuary has numerous reforestation, erosion control and wildlife reintroduction projects underway. More than 30,000 trees have been planted in the last 10 years and a number of endangered wildlife species endemic to Chile are being released to the wild here.
San Martín Hotel, in Viña del Mar, also has an environmental policy and shows clear concern about climate change. It has received the “Green Guest” certification and has an environmental and carbon reduction education program for its guests, encouraging environmentally friendly attitudes such as turning air conditioning and heating off when not in the room and recycling. Each guest receives a brochure with information on climate change and ways they can make a difference.
In addition, we take the following precautions to minimise the environmental impacts of our trips:
• We only organise trips for small groups (up to 12 people) to avoid overloading local infrastructure of the places we visit, particularly those that are environmentally sensitive.
• We dispose of litter responsibly, carrying our own trash bags on each trip and recycling rubbish accordingly once the excursion is over.
• We give guidelines to our clients on how to act in the natural environment and respect wildlife. For example, we urge them not to feed wildlife, not to buy products made from endangered species, and to stay within the defined trails to avoid trampling vegetation and soil when visiting natural areas.
Community
We operate our trips in a way that encourages positive cultural exchanges. Through our excursions, our clients get to interact with locals and spend enough time with them to learn about their way of life, customs, traditions and interests. We attempt to give an insight and understanding of the host culture and community to our clients so that they can gain more from visiting them. In addition to the pre-trip information we send about the destination, our guides –who are all Chilean- are always ready to provide in-depth explanations about the people our travellers encounter and to translate for them any questions they may have for their hosts.
In this tour, the accommodation and attractions visited are locally-owned businesses, thus you will be contributing to sustaining jobs for local community members who hire local Chilean workers. The restaurants we go to offer traditional Chilean cuisine and have prepared special menus for our travellers that highlight typical Chilean ingredients in their plates, avoiding foreign produce.
We promote typical Chilean handicrafts through our tours, taking our travellers to places with shops offering high-quality authentic products. One of our principles is fair trade. We advise our clients about local bargaining customs and give guidelines to reasonable prices.
We encourage travellers to respect the local culture and to try to learn as much as they can from the people they interact with. We advise our clients to ask for permission before taking photos of people. We do not promote giving money for photos as it can encourage a begging culture.
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