Southern India wildlife holiday, tailor made

Carbon reduction

Your holiday will help support local people and conservation. We must also reduce CO₂. Learn about the CO₂ emissions of this holiday and how to reduce them.

We plant around 10,000 trees in the Russian Far East each year as part of our on going commitment to reforesting areas unsustainable deforested.
In this particular tour we look to us hybrid vehicles (electric vehicles where possible - this is not always possible when going off road on safari) as well as staying and recommending eco hotels. Whilst electric and hybird vehicles are hard to get in Asia, we do utilise compressed natural gas vehicles as much as possible, which reduce carbon emissions compared to petrol and diesel engines significantly. These are commonly found in Asia.
When in the wilderness areas of India most of the lodges and particularly when camping in locations such as Ladakh are off the grid and so most of their energy requirements come from renewable energy sources such as solar power and wind power on the property. Where generators are needed, we make sure they are used for a short amount of time each night, and we limit this and do not allow people to use high voltage electrical equipment.
We also make sure that our chosen accommodation utilises the water from the very wet rainy seasons to fill in washing water reserves, making sure that all of the water usage is as sustainable as possible.
Our local guides are just that, local on this tour, so their travelling distances to and from the tour are small.
We are a member of Tour Operators for Tigers (TOFT) which audit each property we use annually to make sure that they all abide by their rigorous eco friendly and sustainable measures.
The vast majority of the food on this trip comes from local producers and the forest and we look to reduce the amount of meat consumed on the trip by providing vegetarian meals where possible and more fish than meat. As most people in the Indian Subcontinent are vegetarian anyway we do our best to encourage our clients to adopt this diet when on the trip.

Environment

In India, Tour Operators for Tigers (TOFT) audit the resorts and accommodation to make sure that they run sustainably and that they meet environmentally friendly aims. By being a member of TOFT we use only TOFT approved accommodation, so you can be assured that the food you eat is locally and responsibly sourced as is the furniture, fuel and other resources used by the accommodation.

TOFT also helps many projects to aid in the development and management of the national parks such as the park guide training and support programme, setting up of a ‘Sponsor a Guard Post’ or ‘Chowkie’ programme, establishing the park wildlife monitoring programme through Park Guides, an improved livestock compensation scheme (that compliments or enhances local Forestry ones) and setting up compostable loos in park areas and mechanism for disposal. All this is done with the overall aim in improving the environmental practises of the national parks and making their use more sustainable.

Wildlife Promise:

In India the main impact that our tours have on the wildlife is through the numerous scientific studies which are conducted throughout India by some of India’s and the world’s best zoologists. This research is all done with the purpose of understanding the tigers’ role in the ecosystem and the effect that tourism and local populations have on the tiger and vice versa. Once these impacts have been assessed TOFT can improve and make sure that tiger safaris in India are sustainable.

Community

The local community benefits from our tiger tours of India because we are a member of the Tour Operators for Tigers (TOFT) organisation. This group is the leading force when it comes to stabilising eco-tourism in India and making tiger safaris sustainable for the future.

Money is donated my us every year and then the money is allocated to various projects such as setting up community vegetable gardens to supply fresh fruit and vegetables to lodges, setting up of local handicrafts and cooperatives to sell handicrafts to lodges & visitors, setting up of nature trails for visitors with training of local guides, building of suitable ‘Machans’ for visitors to watch wildlife or birdlife, refurbishment and upgrade of village homes for homestay visitors, reforestation projects with indigenous tree species and local environmental education programmes.

As with all the safari holidays that we run throughout the world we make sure that we employ local guides and also encourage training and education to enhance their guiding career, we also provide guiding material such as books and clothing to local guides as a means to help them become better guides and earn better wages as a result.