Eco Holidays

posted by Catherine on Jun 2

Seriously – think of you favorite wild animal – and then ask yourself the question: What am I doing to keep them alive?

Many people love pandas, tigers, penguins or even great white sharks – but many of us don’t really make a difference to their fight for life on this planet.

What Can I Do From Home?
Watching a documentary about them on TV does actually help believe it or not. If the TV ratings for a show on African Hunting Dogs gets top ratings – they see money they are making and go out and make another one. But to film these creatures, they need to make sure that they are healthy and their habitat is kept safe.

Buying specialist magazines or books can also make larger companies aware of an interest in certain wildlife or habitats so that they focus more on them and possibly invest more money in research and/or protection.

Similarly, you can join a charity or wildlife group that is helping to educate local people to live with dangerous species (as with the lynx), train specialists to protect endangered animals (as with gorillas) or just stop people chopping down their home (as with orangutans)!

Some charity organisations also sell ‘gift’ packs for certain animals or habitats – such as the WWF. This allows you to buy a gift for a friends birthday/wedding/event that actually sends fund directly to your chosen destination!

Your friends get a cuddly toy, information and magazines all about the dolphin or turtle or whatever – and they get to help protect the wildlife! Rather than buying some consumer gifts and throwing away loads of packaging and sticky tape to haunt future generations – your gift will be keeping those habitats alive for future generations (and yourself) to enjoy!

What Can I Do Abroad?
Obviously joining a charity vacation abroad to actually work with the animals or local communities involved will be a great help. You will be there first hand to help protect your favourite creatures – and learn so much more about them.

You could even just take a vacation to the country that they live in and just support that nation in terms of tourism – maybe booking a tour specifically to see those animals in their habitat. By telling your local hosts and native tour guides that these animals and this habitat were the only reasons for you trip here will make sure that they are aware of the importance of preserving that.

If you went to India and didn’t pay to go see the tigers – why would they bother to help keep them there? Tourism runs like a business – if the tea plantation makes more money than the tiger reserve – guess what might happen? The reserve is taken over by tea!

Make sure that you also tell tour companies the reason for your holiday – I mean if you (and 100′s of other vacationers were asking for a whale-watching holiday in Mexico and they didn’t offer one – I’m sure they would start looking into it!

You must be active in telling companies why you are or are not booking with them. If they don’t know what their potential customers are wanting – they can’t offer it. Don’t just leave them to guess – make the choice for them – make them support your cause.

It may even have a multiplying effect as some people who aren’t so active may book an alternate holiday instead – but if they saw a new wildlife trip on offer in the brochure – they may book it themselves, sending even more funds and interested people to your favorite location or to see your favorite animals!

Basically - you need to get active and show your support for the things you like. Just like you favorite store: if you don’t support it – you could lose it!

posted by Catherine on Feb 28

After years and years of campaigning – we are still trying to save the tiger!

Some species have been saved in recent years – for example the Amur Tiger which was basically brought back from extinction in the 1940′s.

There were an estimated 40 Amur Tigers left in the wild when a project was set up to reverse this dangerous trend – and it has taken over 60 years for the population to reach today’s figure of around 500 tigers today. It wasn’t easy and it leaves the species open to a genetic bottleneck where there is such a small gene pool for future generations. But the animals live on.

We can stop this happening to other species of tiger in the world if we start now, and do it properly!

Tigers 2009.
It is estimated that there are now only around 4000-7000 wild tigers left in the wild today. This is very low compared to recent history.

There are now only 5% of the total number of tigers that have lived in the past on earth today, with the stronghold being in India. It’s historic range – the area where it previously lived has shrunk by 93%, leaving only restricted pockets across the Asian continent.

As with many other species – they are illegally poached. Tigers are hunted and killed for their amazing skins and for apparently ‘medicinal purposes’. However, they are being wiped out faster than they can breed and of course the rarer they become – the more they are worth so it is a self-perpetuating spiral!

Another reason their numbers are dwindling is their competition with humans. They compete for the land and the resources, and unfortunately the humans are winning! When the tigers land is taken or destroyed by humans, the tigers will sometimes need to pass close to settlements and of course if they are hungry they will take livestock. Can you blame them?

However, it is not always livestock that become prey – many humans have lost their lives as these two forces are pushed closer together. If things are going to change, it must benefit the communities as well as the tigers.

What Can We Do?
Well, there are many groups set up and campaigning for the protection of the remaining tiger populations, and many of these are also trying to tackle the human aspect of this environment too.

Preserve:
Saving and protecting the tiger refuges are just a small part of this, as you also need to protect their prey species too, and the food and environment of that prey species. I mean you can’t save the tiger if the deer it eats aren’t there.

Educate:
By working with local farmers to better protect their livestock, charities hope it will reduce the risk of a tiger attack and lessen the conflict of retaliation. Offering a range of different crops and trades to farmers and their families should help to reduce their dependency on livestock and the environment by reducing the need to deplete local resources and ultimately making their lives more sustainable.

Protect:
Stopping or reducing the poaching is also a priority, and TRAFFIC and other charities and NGO’s are petitioning to increase fines and sentencing for poachers that are caught. They are also trying to reduce the market for tiger parts so a dead tiger is worth less.

Improve:
Increasing the money made from seeing the tigers alive is a major advance in the area. If local people are employed in tourism to show them that people are willing to pay big money to see the animals alive, they will do more to keep them alive. A single tiger killed will make money only once – a living tiger will make money every day it is alive. If it breeds, it will only multiply that money for future generations.

Large Scale:
Work with larger businesses and international companies to look elsewhere for resources or to use the land with alternative business. For example, reducing the clearing of forests for palm oil plantations, and increasing tourism-related enterprises.

Tourism is the reason that the tigers and national parks are even here in the first place. If no-one was paying to see them – they probably wouldn’t exist! By advertising travel and tiger safaris to these regions should help to increase their protection and their numbers.

Wildlife Ranger Course:
There is a 12 day full-board trip currently available for you to train as a wildlife ranger (www.discoveryinitiatives.co.uk) in India for around US$3700per person including a $43 contribution to the Global Tiger Patrol.

The cost involves travel to several wildlife refuges – one of which is rarely visited by tourists! You get to see the tigers themselves as well as spend time with local communities debating both sides of the issue. It’s very easy to sit at home and tell people what they should and shouldn’t do – but you only see the whole story when you are actually there.

Can you imagine your reaction if Hindu Indian officials were campaigning to stop us farming their sacred cow in the UK? They would be telling us that we can’t eat beef, drink milk, ferment cheese or wear leather. They will think this is so obvious and easy to do. Just as we can’t believe that anyone would ever think of cutting down a rain forest or killing an extremely rare and beautiful tiger, they probably can’t believe that we would kill a cow and then wear it!

Different cultures believe different things and act in different ways. Ultimately, we are all trying to make a living and keep our family safe – but we all have different challenges and deal with them in different ways. And this course is your chance to step into someone else’s shoes and see how they fit!

It’s not only just about the tigers either – you get to see the whole ecosystem – wolves, jackals, leopards and many more predators all live in the same area – all looking for different prey, but all ultimately dependant on each other. Take one of the fantastic night walks to really see the wildlife!

There are many other trips to the area to see the tigers – but make sure that some of the money actually stays in the area of goes to a sustainable and well recognised charity or other organisation – as unfortunately, many are just like package holidays – with all the money staying in the west and none actually going to fund tiger conservation!

If you can’t take this trip, then you can still contribute by contacting WWF and making a donation, becoming a member, sponsoring a tiger or by requesting tickets for their upcoming Tiger Raffle.

Can you help?

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