Tanjung Puting orangutan holiday, Borneo

Planet

We are committed to running our business and tours in a way that is environmentally, culturally and socially responsible. We encourage our guests and suppliers to work with us to travel and operate in a way that conserves and protects the areas we visit and bring positive benefits to local communities. We are therefore committed to continual improvement in our environmental performance, preventing pollution and minimising our effects through a complete programme of annual reviews of our expeditions and try to make our activities environmentally and socially positive.

Our local agents do this in a number of ways including:

- To greatly reduce our impact on the environment there will be a maximum of ten team members. This allows guests greater opportunity for local interaction and to experience cultures first hand. It also helps to minimise the damage associated with large scale tourism.
- We resource our trips with locally produced goods wherever possible that is then prepared and used in reusable containers thus reducing wastage and excess packaging for food, water and equipment.

For this trip to Borneo we donate a % of the expeditions cost directly to the Orangutan foundation which is an international organisation which actively protects the Orangutans environment from illegal loggers. On this trip we also visit and suport a local Orangutan orphange where our donations help to reintroduce captive Orangutans back in to the wild. We will also visit a plantation where all visitors will plant some trees in order to regenerate the depleting forest.

Further considerations are:
- Achieve zero litter, and when appropriate remove local litter.
- Avoid pollution from our camp and accommodation activities.
- Achieve zero damage and impact to local flora and fauna.
- Encourage understanding of the local environment and its fragilities.
- Encourage the eating of local foods, preserving traditional farming practice.
- Encourage the use of biodegradable products especially washing products.
- Ensure good practice on all toilet activities, avoiding pollution to water courses.
- Ensure waste is minimized and recycled whenever possible.
- Minimise the use of water.

Our commitment to our environmental policy extends to our working environment. All staff recycle and make business decisions with an ethical dimension such as using public transport and maximising the use of email. We are committed to running a business that has as little environmental impact as possible.

People

We support the local community by training and employing local guides which has the double benefit of reinvesting in the country and local community as well as providing guests with an invaluable insight into and understanding local culture, customs and etiquette. We treat every person associated with this trip with equal respect and expect clients to do the same.
- Wherever possible we select small, locally owned accommodation and camps and local restaurants and markets for servicing our trips thus putting revenue back into local, often very remote communities.
Saving the enviroment through tourism
Simply put, if the land holds more value to those that own it through tourism (rather than cutting down trees), the land will be preserved and the wildlife within protected. By you visiting these areas, you are creating the demand and the income that subsequently protects the forest for the next visitor. On top of this, part of your expedition costs through is donated to adopting an orangutan for a year and protecting rain forest through the Safeguard program.
As well as the effect we can have on local cultures we also ensure that we consider environmental, cultural, economic and political issues in the planning stage of an expedition.