Snow Leopard safari in Ladakh, India

Planet

Each safari provides a real wildlife viewing and conservation experience. By opting for a safari with us, safari guests are already helping to contribute towards our conservation work. Profits from your safari go to support local projects. Local teams of wildlife conservationists are actively involved in wildlife and environmental conservation projects.

Profits from this safari supports Travel Operators For Tigers (TofTigers) a non-profit campaign set up in 2003 to protect tigers, wildlife and wilderness through sustainable tourism. In particular we are helping to fund a successful program to recruit and retrain ex-poachers to become wildlife guardians. We are supporting TOFTigers to continue its campaigning to have public and private investment in wilderness, much like other parts of the world, in the forms of private conservancies and community sanctuaries, ensuring forest patches, corridors and wastelands can be restored by passionate individuals, communities, NGO’s or wealthy philanthropists. In November 2015 the Maharashtra Government made it legal to set up nature conservancies on private land with farmers’ lands on leaseholds, ensuring a greater opportunity for village communities to be beneficiaries in conservation and tourism. Madhya Pradesh is considering leasing forest landscapes to private entrepreneurs to restore and rewild. These may well be the start of something special that will again value nature and wilderness and supply net benefit to both its wildlife inhabitants and its human stakeholders.
This is where TOFTigers aims to try and change how wildlife tourism is derived and operated across the subcontinent. Together we really can make a difference to both parks and local communities buffeted by wildlife conflict.

In an effort to reduce single use plastics, we issue our guests with a metal water bottle at the start of each safari, which can be refilled as required and saves the use of plastic bottle. We are working with all our lodges in the area of this safari to support them in installing water filling stations for this purpose.

People

While on safari we recommend that visitors buy locally produced goods and support local artisans. In this way, visitors are able to help sustain the local community, contribute towards conservation and enrich their own lives. During each safari there will be opportunities to purchase goods from local artists, market stalls and restaurants in keeping with the ideals of fair trade.

Our guides will advise on a ‘fair price’ if requested, however it is worth noting that a relatively small sum can make a huge difference to peoples lives and guests are asked to consider this when bargaining with market stallholders.

Safari staff are all recruited locally and encouraged to develop local tourism and in this way assist in reducing human conflict issues with leopards. Where applicable local staff produce conservation based items for sale (100% of the proceeds going to the originator). Local rangers and guides are employed at all levels. This safari also supports community education programs via our local partners.