Umbria self guided walking holiday, Italy

Environment

1) We support a local NGO, TAMAT, that is working on a project to develop sustainable mobility (H2power project) and we buy their gadgets to fund their activities. They are working, with other partners, on developing a demonstrator vehicle that is using as fuel a variable mixture of methane and hydrogen, that can be produced from renewable energy sources. They also organize awareness raising events for citizens and students about sustainable development and mobility and about the solution to preserve our environment.
2) We support the set up of the Foundation “Archeologia Arborea” in Città di Castello, which aims are to support biodiversity, the identification and multiplication of varieties of fruit trees that are disappearing because not as productive as the modern ones, protection of the landscape, support to sustainable development. The Foundation will take care, develop, reproduce and spread the different varieties of old and typical fruit trees that is the heritage of the San Lorenzo Collection, that includes 400 trees (apple, pear, cherry, plum, fig, almond, quince and medlar trees) that have been found in Central Italy and reproduced to avoid their extinction.
3) The goal of the Umbria Region is to achieve the 65% of separate collection of rubbish in a few years. Some of the 92 Umbria municipalities have reached it yet. We help support Umbria environment giving to our clients information to support recycling explaining how to divide rubbish and where to throw it away. The most common categories of rubbish are: organic waste, non-recyclable waste and recyclable waste (paper, plastic, tin and glass). In the streets or in the hotels and B&B, you will find several containers that have different colours and have a label -written only in Italian- explaining what it must collect, so we provide our travellers with a simple guide with instructions to sustain recycling: check our little guide before disposing of your garbage to be eco-friendly!

Community

1) We give to our clients a list of farmers’ markets: true open air food shops from the producer to the consumer, vegetables organically grown and “zero kilometers” far. Buying and tasting their products is a way to support small local producers that otherwise risk to disappear. Farmers’ markets in Umbria are part of a project called “ Campagna Amica” that identifies and safeguards Italian and certified farmers’ products. In these markets you can find women producing buffalo mozzarella and cheeses, farmers with fresh fruit and vegetables (there is also a cooperative that sells products grown in a jail by prisoners), producing and selling typical flours and beans and so on. We support all of them buying their products and organizing, when possible, tasting of their products.
2) We are associated to Le Mat - social entrepreneurs in tourism. This is their manifesto: " We would like a tourism able to open the minds towards those who are different from us, a tourism where you can meet people who are curious to meet you; where through travelling and discovering unfamiliar methods, thoughts and actions you can listen to thousands of stories and experiences of different cultures of local communities willing to exchange with and to welcome who come from abroad ...". We work with their franchisees, for example with an hostel located in the most beautiful square of one of the Medieval cities where the tour will bring you, that was once a convent of nuns. They promote meetings with local people living in the village, as Luciana, a woman that handweaves wool dyed only with vegetal colours from saffron and onion.