A List of Eco, Ethical and Responsible Travel Organisations on Twitter

I've become aware of late of the various eco-tourism, ethical tourism and responsible tourism organisations who are on twitter but I sometimes feel like there's a lot of us working towards the same ends, but we're not always as in touch as we could be.


I've put together a list of people who I follow on twitter and I am sharing the list here. I have featured the ones below as a taster of the entire list as a whole.  To follow the entire list on twitter just click on the link below.  

@ecothreesixty/eco-travel-orgs

Sustainable Travel @STI_travel

STI's mission is to positively impact communities and travelers worldwide through sustainable tourism development that delivers measurable results.

Hidden Britain @HiddenBritain
We’re a charity helping local communities to realise their tourism potential, creating a fantastic place to visit for everyone and supporting the local economy

Resp Tourism Canada @ICRT_Canada

International Centre for Responsible Tourism Canada - promoting & developing the concept of responsible tourism in Canada

World Green Tourism @WGreenTourism
ADTA and EAD initiative to promote sustainable tourism globally - especially in the Middle East . Tweets news on the region and titbits from further afield.

Mary Mulvey @ecoireland

Ireland only Ecotourism criteria approved by Global Sustainable Tourism Council 2012


Chitwan Jungle Lodge @ChitwanJungle
I'm Nistha Shrestha, Marketing Exec for Chitwan Jungle Lodge, a quiet little family-run lodge located deep inside the Chitwan National Park in Nepal.

Nat Geo Traveler @NatGeoTraveler

Traveler championed sustainable travel before it was cool and celebrates cultural and authentic journeys. 

Carin Cowell @EcolodgeMorocco

Founder of www.khanfousretreat.com, a bamboo retreat experience on the gorgeous Atlantic coast of Morocco, where sustainability and responsibility matter.

Tourism Concern @tourismconcern

We're the only organisation in Europe actively campaigning on tourism & human rights issues. Our mission is to ensure that tourism always benefits local people

Joie de Vivre Hotels @JDVHotels

Joie de Vivre manages over 30 boutique hotels, restaurants and spas located in Calif. and Ariz. and is opening in Palm Springs and Chicago in Feb. 2012.

The Social Travelers @SocialTravelers

WE BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF TRAVEL TO EFFECT POSITIVE CHANGE...WE LIVE FOR EXCEPTIONAL MOMENTS...THE WORLD AWAITS!

Sandy @TiptoeTraveller 

French Marketer, loves life, people, nature, real food, travelling near & far. Keen to share small ideas for greener adventures just 1 little step at a time.

One World 365 @oneworld365

A directory of meaningful travel opportunities including volunteer work, jobs, teaching, conservation, eco / adventure trips & tours worldwide

Ethan Gelber @thetravelword

The travel blog of the WHL Group (www.whl-group.com), the largest local-travel company in the world, connecting mindful travellers to responsible experiences.

TIES @ecotravel

Dedicated to promoting ecotourism since 1990.

Kate T @Thedivehub

Applying responsible tourism principles to scuba diving, making a difference - one dive at a time! Kate Turner

SustainableTrip.org @SustainableTrip

Helping travelers find sustainable tourism destinations in Latin America and the Caribbean! Created by the Rainforest Alliance, a nonprofit organization.

Stephen Chapman @maketravelfair

The original sustainable travel Blog network. Make Travel Fair is about unleashing the potential of travel to educate, engage and inspire

Ecotourism Feeds @EcotourismFeeds

GO GREEN ON THE ROAD!!Tweets and retweet to inspire to conserve local nature and cultural differences!

Himalayan Footsteps @Himalfootsteps
Himalayan specialists. Follow for adventure with altitude and attitude. Olly tweets news from Himalayas, ethical travel & travel tips.

Irene Lane @GreenloonsEco
Founder of Greenloons | educates & connects eco-conscious travelers with certified ecotourism operators & accommodations | aims to visit a new country each year

Ecotourism Australia @EcotourismAus
Ecotourism Australia is committed to growing and promoting ecotourism and other sustainable tourism experiences

Katie @QualityUnearthd
tweeting about anything that grabs my attention, eco-builds, yurts, retreats, quirky stuff and even, sometimes, QU holidays!

Muskoka Foundation @DoGoodAsYouGo
We equip&inspire a network of travelers to live the idea of use what you know, to do good as you go. Programs create skills, independence &sustainable change.

If you think you can recommend any organisation who is worth adding, I'll happily add them.

Travel, The New Year and SEO

2012 is here and yes I have to confess to a fair bit of blog neglect, well with today that all changes.  


It's been goo to have the holiday season, and with the new year is seems like the world of sustainable travel seems to be growing daily, Google alerts for ecotourism seem to be on the rise, which doesn't necessarily mean that ecotourism is on the rise it may just be the obvious of more bloggers and journalists writing about it but I'd like to think that there's a chance that it's growing on a really tangible level.   


SEO, three letters that I think we're gradually gaining more of an overall understanding of.  Ecothreesixty.com is gradually going up the Google rankings, are we anywhere close to where we want to be, no not at all, are we getting there, I think so bit by bit.  If you'd like to help, feel free to check out ecothreesixty.com.  


What's next?  Watch this space.   

A Film Review of The Lady and whether you should travel to Burma

Michelle Yeoh as Aung San Suu Kyi

I saw the film "The Lady" a few days ago at an advanced screening, the film is the biopic of tireless campaigner for Burmese freedom and Nobel Peace Prizewinner Aung San Suu Kyi.  And I thought I might try and combine a rather ragged review of the film with some thoughts on whether it is ethically acceptable to travel to Burma.  


The film does give you an interesting insight of Aung San Suu Kyi's curious situation of being someone who had a comfortable life, who due to circumstance found themselves in a position and was left with the quandary of whether she could walk away. Aung San Suu Kyi as a Burmese woman whose father had brought the country independence from the British, felt a compulsion, to stay and campaign from house arrest and other ongoing degradations for freedom.  The generals who are responsible for savage acts are depressingly comic, they seem to look group of taxi-drivers who like to dress up as generals on dress-down Fridays.  Knowing the butchery and inhumanity the real generals have inflicted I felt we should have felt more than amusement upon seeing them.  Perhaps the one things to come from the portrayal of the generals, is that they are constantly playing for time and ultimately seem to only be slightly bothered about external pressure be it from the US, Europe, China or Russia.  

The Fighting Peacock Flag

The film tries to capture Burma's struggle against oppression, through the life of Aung San Suu Kyi's relationship with her husband and her two sons.  And on some level, it kind of succeeds, for brief moments, but overall it doesn't leave you with much hope for her or the country, and it feels quite distanced from the real the horrors faced by ordinary Burmese people for most of the film.   


The film focuses in the main on Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest and she has now been freed from house arrest and with her freedom has come a change in her views on tourists visiting Burma.  Until recently Aung San Suu Kyi and the Free Burma Coalition, which are (effectively the elected government which has not been allowed to govern the country) were both firmly against foreign travellers going to Burma.  
But obviously after such a strong and lasting stance against it, travellers are still reticent and concerned about travelling to a country which such an oppressive regime in power. I think those concerns are perfectly justified and regardless of the views expressed by Aung San Suu Kyi and the Free Burma Coalition each traveller must first find peace with their own conscience.  If travellers can do that, then they may find solace in the interview she gave to the Daily Telegraph this November in which she stated that “There has been change, not sufficient yet but we’ll get there” and that she hopes that the changes will occur sooner rather than later.  I'm of the mind that the generals of the junta will loosen the reins of control off a bit and then pull hard on them when they start to feel real power start to slip away from them.  It was only 2007 when the monks rose to protest against army rule and were brutally put down. I hope will be proven to be wrong as time progresses and if the selfless and courageous people who have spent every day of every year since 1947 trying to bring peace and democracy to Burma say they welcome visitors to the country then you have an open invitation from the people best placed to make that judgement.  

A Review of the "Green Rooms" book

I've seen this book a couple of times in bookshops and last Friday I thought I'd treat myself.  Not to mention that is was reduced.  So I felt obligated to pick it up, thumb through and then even buy it.  


Firstly before even checking starting into the worth of the book itself I took a cursory glance over it to check its own "green" credentials before looking more closely at it's contents, and yes it had a badge telling me that the CO2 emmissions had been offset by putting money into projects that work on reducing carbon emissions.  So if you believe in off-setting (and yes, I'll come back to that), it basically has a tick there and it also had a FSC mixed sources badge.  So hooray, a book that was about green rooms, which was quite green, in and of itself.   


So on to the book, it has a foreword by Richard Hammond one of the leading ecotourism writers within the UK who has his own column in The Guardian and as the papers eco travel correspondent. Then you get a sound overview and some basic background into the ideas and principles of ecotourism.  And Tourism Concern also offers you "Responsible Travel Tips" which gives you some basic pointers on how not to be exploitative when travelling.  All fine well and good so far.  


One thing I like about the guide, is that instead of talking about lodges or hotels or self-catering etc, rooms give it a great deal of flexibility and as a result there are rooms in eco-lodges like Guludo Beach Lodge but there are also "eco-hotels" like Fairmount Chicago, but also more eclectic fare like The Hoopoe Yurt Hotel, Whitepod and Damaraland Camp.  


The actual "Green Room" pages themselves, are nice and clear, each has a brief breakdown enabling the reader to do a quick scan.  It has the usual things like rates, best time to go etc.  On the eco side each listing has the amount of CO2 that would be generated for one person to travel from the various major cities around the world to that particular room, it helps give you a snap shot of what our travel actually costs the planet.  Beneath it are the amounts it will cost to offset the CO2 emissions generated by your trip.  Like you can just add that on to the cost of the trip, and it will take away all the carbon generated by the trip, which you can't.  Once it it has been released, it is out there and there's no putting it back.  Anyway, I think some good and bad there. 


Ultimately this is a "before you go guide" rather than "a guide for when you are there", it is 311 pages long excluding and being about the same width as a Lonely Planet or Rough Guide for a small country, it is not comprehensive enough for you to find places when you are actually within a country.  


As you go through the book there's various ideas for excursions and experiences and which have an ecotourism bent.  Like "Paddle Power" canoing around Isla Espiritu Santo (if you go, feel free to add to the minimal wikipedia entry) the trip is so eco-friendly that you "pack in", everything that you "pack out" which in the case of the trip taken by the contributors includes taking your own poo home with you, as there is no bacteria in the sand on the island.  There are other ideas like "The Grizzly Trail", "Spotting Jaguars" and "Karma Down" (shameless punning is apparently quite acceptable in some ecotourism circles).  These brief ideas and suggestions break up the listings nicely and also give you some unique travel ideas which I think really live up to the ethos of ecotourism.  


As well as the actual trip ideas there are other pages dotted through out the book which are more geared to educating readers on issues surrounding green travel, ecotourism and ethical tourism (one day these will all fit perfectly into a single, catch-all term). There are passages on "Should I hire a Car?" "Should I give to beggars?" and "Tribal Welfare", these help to add insight into the main point of the book and it is perfect for the dipping in and out reader, which is ultimately how the book is set out.  


What I really like about this book, is that it isn't overly preachy, it doesn't feel like it has been written by a group of revolutionaries who are going to make you feel like leaving your home is a crime against the planet, it deals with things in a balanced, intelligent way.  I think on balance I would give it a 7/10 and happily recommend it to anyone who was interested in planning an eco trip or who just wanted to learn more about the field itself.