Walking holiday in Spain, Marina Alta

Environment

Diversifying into rural tourism allows the villagers to develop an income that contributes towards sustaining the rural economy, and in turn, allows the villagers to continue caring for their land and conserves the diversity of flora, fauna and landscape.

The conservation of these biological and landscape values is crucial in an area acknowledged as a European bio-diversity hotspot but that has little, or no, official status or protection.

Walking holidays are a low carbon emission activity, to minimise the environmental impact of our holidays we use the most fuel efficient vehicles available, we avoid unnecessary car transfers and we encourage our guests to use public transport.

In selecting the accommodations we have chosen those that have a recycling policy and are actively recycling all paper, glass, plastic and waste oil and that also seek to reduce their energy consumption by using energy efficient appliances and energy saving strategies.

Water is a scarce resource in the Mediterranean so all of our accommodations use water efficient cisterns and have showers to reduce water consumption.

Community

Your visit to this area will both make a difference to the local community and the to the environment.

Rural depopulation and an aging population structure are slowly eroding the traditional way of life pursued by the inhabitants of these mountain villages for hundreds of years. This means the store of traditional, and often unwritten knowledge, retained within the rural culture is lost as people move to conurbations. A good example of this is the ethno-botanical knowlege of the medicianal uses of plants accumulated over millenia by rural communties.

Secondly, it contributes to global warming as people moving out of the villages require more resources for new housing and transport.

Thirdly. it leads to a reduction in species diversity as the mixed arable farming habitats are lost.

In most of these villages farming is the only means of earning a living, but continuing reductions in crop prices and rising production costs means that it is becoming less and less viable to farm these steep mountains.

Our main aim in promoting this trek is to help provide these villages with an economic alternative that respects cultural and environmental values.