Green Holidays

Why not try some new recipes to save money on the road?

There are plenty of new dishes you can try when you travel overseas – but when you are on a budget – or living in a remote location – you might need to try some new things!

There are a lot of new foods available in the countries that you are probably travelling through – so why not take advantage of them when you are working you way through a continent or working on a volunteer project.

Forget your normal ways of eating – and embrace the new!  Maybe this will involve taking a cooking book with you or just taking a few classes on cooking times and sauces!

The Standards:
Now, there are many combinations of foods that you could come across when cooking overseas – although to be honest most of them will be focused on rice!

However you might not have a fridge for most of it – so you need to be aware of how best to store fresh food – and how to limit what you buy in the first place!

Depending on how far away from stores you are – your menus will vary immensely.  I mean if you can get you hands on fresh veg almost every day, then buy as little as possible each day – but when you only get fresh supplies every so often – then you need to get creative!

Storage Skills:
Something in the kitchen almost as important as the cooking is the storing!

If you don’t look after your ingredients or use them in the right order – then you are wasting them.  So you need to think ahead as soon as you get raw materials.

Thinking of basic recipes can really help you – but learning how to create new recipes and to store things to get the best shelf-life out of them is key to making you food go further and saving on waste.

Food doesn’t normally come with more than a few days freshness when picked and left on the kitchen table – especially in tropical climates.  And even in the fridge, dairy products and watery vegetables don’t pass the week really.

So you need to work out which things can be used fresh, which need cooking before storing and those which can be treated in some way to preserve them for many months – and many of these things you will find already in use by the local people.

photo credit: andrewrennie

Local Skills:
There are many ‘specialist’ foods that have evolved not due to their great taste – but because they are locally found foods and this is the way they need to be cooked or stored to best serve the communities they are found in – and learning a bit about them won’t do you any harm!

For example ‘stir-fried’ food was used in China where they didn’t have a lot of fuel for cooking over a long period of time – so they invented a food that took just minutes to heat up. 

Many colder European countries needed to grow all the root vegetables they needed for the year in their short growing season – so they learned to pickle a huge amount of them to last them through the cold winters when nothing would grow – like sauerkraut!

And if you didn’t have a car or supermarket – or a lot of money – wouldn’t you eat things that was found close to home and that you could make last a long time!

Stores where you visit might sell brands from back home – but you don’t need to buy them….

Thinking ahead to what you enjoy on holiday can influence your savings!

Did you think that your savings just sat in a drawer at the bank the whole time – earning you interest by just being there?

No, of course not.  Your money is sent all around the world by your bank or financial company and invested into all sorts of ventures from gold to technology, and from energy to vaccinations.

But what if your bank is funding things that you disapprove of?  Have you even asked them who they lend your money to?

Why Should You Care?
Well, firstly – you surely don’t want to be giving your money to any company that isn’t environmentally friendly do you?  Or a company that abuses people or landscapes? 

Would you give your money to a company that clears forests, pollutes waterways or displaces communities? Or one that abuses people, destroys homes and causes illness and disease?

What if you are spending money each month donating to charities which are using your money to fight certain developments – yet your savings are helping to fund the other side.

One set of funds is destroying a habitat – and you other money is trying to clean up the pieces!

What Could You Be Doing?
Well, you could be responsible for destroying the very places that you want to visit in the future. 

Your funds could be clearing landscapes for farming, energy exploration, transport connections, and any number of other technologies without you really knowing that you are doing it.

photo credit: L Gnome

If you were only looking at the financial returns at the end of your term or for when you retire then you are missing the point of the word: investment!

What is the point of investing in purely your own financial future – when the rest of the world is still being changed beyond your control.

So what you should be doing is making sure that the companies you invest in are doing what you want them to be doing.  Check with your bank where they are sending your money before you give it to them.

You try to only travel with ethical companies and you buy products that are fair trade and sustainable – so why not check where all your money is going in the bank!

You could be paying an oil drilling company to cut holes in the Amazon with your pension – and also giving to a charity to try to relocate all the people and animals that used to live where an oil well is now situated.

And if you want to ever see those orangutans in the wild – make sure your savings account isn’t funding oil palm plantations!

You can do a lot of things with your money – so plan to spend it well!

Could Supporting Local Bee Farmers Help Reduce Demands On The Environment?

We need to think big these days – and certainly look to be sympathetic to the developing world – who are living in conditions similar to those that we were only a few 100 years ago.

They are mainly subsistence farmers or herders who live on what they can grow and the little that they can sell.  They have to rely on resources that are local to them and are as good as free – just as those in the US and Europe did not so long ago.

Now, unfortunately – we are painfully aware that living like this is not going to be possible for the millions of people now currently living in the developing world.

The climate is changing to make herding and farming virtually impossible in some areas; the population has risen to ridiculous and unsustainable numbers making a few trees for the family firewood become a whole woodland for the expanding village; and the demands of the (comparatively) richer individuals are stripping whole countries bare of resources, taking land and water from local people and dumping waste in their backyards.

So – What Can We Do?
Well, as we know what is currently ‘damaging’ to our planet – we can use our buying power to make the right choices.

Just as back home – what you buy determines what manufacturers make – the same applies to internationally traded goods.  Although the honest truth sometimes slips by us:

If you keep buying illegally logged hardwoods (ie. by not opting for FSC approved alternatives) you are actively supporting the destruction of the rainforests and the extermination of orangutans, jaguars, and the endless number of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and plants that depend on them.

If you keep buying any old fish or seafood that you like the look of (rather than opting for MSC approved sustainable alternatives) you are actively supporting the extinction of many endangered species that are being over-fished.  You are also actively supporting the wasteful and destructive nature of bottom-trawling and long-line fishing that are killing off more than just the fish you get to eat; this includes all sorts of birds, mammals, other fish and sea creatures.

I could go on with this list – but sometimes we don’t think or the end result of our ‘easy’ food choices.

Alternative Living:
So back to the bees: They reproduce extremely fast, do all the hard work themselves and don’t need a huge amount of space to grow. What a great alternative to cattle and dessicated crops! But they need someone to buy the honey.

And so, if a family has chosen to ‘farm’ these insects rather than farm something illegal or damaging to the environment – then shouldn’t we support that?

All across the globe we are trying to help communities to become more self-sufficient and sustainable by introducing bee-keeping, fairtrade specialist products and co-ops so that they don’t have to plunder their local area just to survive. 

We are also helping to make sure that they have access to biomass heating, solar cookers, water purifiers and education and skills so that they don’t have to depend on limited rainwater, local forests, bushmeat and food handouts.

So, make sure that you support these efforts back home with your shopping choices.  If they are making something that you don’t buy – then they won’t be sustainable alternatives, will they?

If they are saving the rainforest and it’s endangered wildlife buy manufacturing fairtrade honey, organic coffee or FSC approved furniture – then you had better make sure that you buy it over the ‘not so eco friendly’ alternatives.

If not – then they will have to go back to living off the land – even if that means killing another tiger, clearing some lush forests or over-grazing their land with cattle.

Your choice!

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Who is Ramsar – and why does he run our local wetlands?

Small nature reserves in the UK aren’t just for local people to admire or picnic in – some of them are deemed of international importance! Just like the Great Pyramids of Egypt and the Grand Canyon in the States – we have places in the UK that are of interest to everyone in the world and are therefore protected as such!

Such sites have specific names and acronyms to identify them – and here are a few of them to look out for on your holidays:

UNESCO World Heritage Site:
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation Heritage Site scheme is known the world over as amazing locations – but did you know we had a few right here?

Heritage Sites are divided up into Natural, Cultural or Mixed and the UK has 28 in total! (Only 6 countries have more sites). These sites can also include just buildings without any surrounding land – but that is why they have split them up into either Natural or Cultural sites to distinguish between them.

They include Hadrians Wall, Giant’s Causeway, Neolithic Orkney as well as Stonehenge and Avebury – and are a mixture of paying and free sites to visit. Imagine; our stone circles being as important as Macchu Pichu and the Grand Canyon!

Avebury World Heritage Site

Geoparks:
These areas are a relatively new scheme of natural sites monitored by UNESCO to preserve the geography of a region.

Whether it’s the oldest rocks in the world in Scotland or a great landscape feature like the Fforest Fawr – it could be included. The UK has 10 Geoparks including the Cotswolds and the Pennines and may well get more in the future.

Biosphere Reserves:
Again by UNESCO, these parks are focusing on the biological side of the natural world and these park are meant to represent the balance between man and nature – basically they are to be managed sustainably by humans.

The UK only has 9 sites out of a worldwide total of 553 – and they include the North Norfolk Coast and Beinn Eighe – but there have been no recent additions to the UK listings.

Ramsar Sites:
These sites are specifically about protecting international wetlands, and so are focused along waterways and estuaries around the world.

The joining parties wished to make sure that other countries do not abuse or destroy their wetlands and so set up criteria in the 1970′s (in a town called Ramsar) for everyone to adhere to.

They now oversee 1,888 sites across the globe covering around 1,850,000km² in total! The UK has the highest actual number of protected Ramsar sites (168 in total) although Canada has the greatest protected wetland area (130,000 square kms).

February the 2nd each year is World Wetlands Day – and is celebrated with events through many of the wetland sites – as well as other similar sites that are not yet classified as Ramsar.

Hope this helps!

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Which charity should you donate to, to help the Haitians get through this terrible natural disaster?

Well, that is the point of the DEC – the Disasters Emergency Committee which have been working hard for humans since 1963 – basically they join all the main humanitarian charities together to fight one cause.

These humanitarian agencies include Save The Children, Help The Aged and the British Red Cross, and in times of emergency – like the earthquake that recently devastated Haiti – they join together to make big things happen – and fast!

This way funds, supplies and more importantly – information, gets passed to the right people at the right time  – rather than having all of the 13 single charities all trying to ‘do their bit’ to help separately but at the same time basically treading on each others toes!

It makes perfect sense to organise emergency relief this way – otherwise there will be too many people all on the same place at the same time all using valuable funds to do the same thing.

The DEC makes sure that none of the funds are wasted and that every charity can work in it’s area of expertise without wasting time deciding who is going to do what.

Your Donations:
By donating directly to the DEC, you can save even more of these funds by limiting the administration costs (and wasted time) of transferring money to Help The Aged, who then have to process and bank this money, only to then process these funds again when working with the DEC.

And, donating directly to the Disasters Committee means that that is exactly what your donation is going to be used for.  It isn’t going to pay wages for charity workers who are not directly helping the victims of the earthquake; it is going straight to the problem – and fast!

The DEC can also call upon huge international broadcasting agencies and distribution companies to help spread the word and facilitate collections and direct action – like free-phone numbers and televised broadcast appeals.  Your money makes this possible – and gets results.

Emergencies:
No one can plan for such emergencies, so these ‘on demand’ appeals are the best way to get the publics attention and to get one-off donations from companies and individuals.  These disasters don’t happen every week – so treat them as a rare event that you can help out with.

I mean, no-one is going to become a member of the DEC and get newsletters from it – it is an instant decision charity, and everyone can help by lifting the phone or getting online.

If everyone in your street gave just £5 that could be over £500 raised - multiply up your close neighbourhood – and it rises to £3000+. 

It might only be a small amount to you – but it soon treats thousands of wounded people – feeds hundreds of families and eventually helps to rebuild homes, hospitals, schools and cities.

Have you donated your £5 yet?  Donate Now.

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Learning to Tango in Argentina can be just as important as visiting a rainforest…….

There are a whole host of festival and events that may well rely on your visit to survive the next 30 years or so. 

I’m not talking about the modern Rio Carnival or Oktoberfest – I’m talking about traditions that have lived for centuries in small communities across the world.

UNESCO has set about preserving these traditions with their Intangible Cultural Heritage scheme – to which they have recently added the Tango – but which holds many many more already including many little known cultural delights from across the globe.

Take for example, the Indonesian Wayang Puppet Theatre. This art of story telling has been used in Indonesia for 10 thousand years, across the royal courts and in towns and villages, to bring the regions epic history to life.

There is still an interest in the puppets – either 3-dimensional or brought alive by shadows – accompanied by musicians and singers, but it is having to compete with television and the internet for viewers. 

By making sure you add a visit to a traditional theatre show on your trip to the area, you could be making sure that it is worth continuing the tradion and worth training for.  Would you invest your time learning a skill that people might not need in 5 years?

Or a trip to Mexico in late fall could coincide with the huge festival: el dia de los muertos – the Day of the Dead.  Thousands of local villagers spend the day in celebration of their lost loved ones who are said to come alive for the day and to bring properity and good luck to the families.

Cultural Heritage:

We all know how important it is to encourage traditions and festivals, but of course we need to make sure that we don’t make them into a side show, like the Kayan women from Thailand have become, but we want to make sure that they know the importance of their traditions.

Also, they do not want to freeze cultures in time.  There is no intention to force people to continue with customs that are no longer relevant, but to empower cultures with their past – rather than force them into an uncomfortable future.

Things like Morris Dancing in the UK are well known not to be a part of modern culture – yet we all love the tradition of the dancing and the people who dress up for this know the history and pass on the reasons behind the colors and the stick-bashing!

Society will always evolve – but why not hold on to the things that were once important.  Hopefully governments are working with these groups to make sure that these traditions are not lost forever like many languages around the world have been.

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I know it’s early yet – but keep the date clear in your diary!

I have been to this show for several years now – and I love it! 

It has got everything from volunteering, gap year advice, great products, specific seminars and great food!

I would really recommend a visit here for any travel related queries. The experts on hand can offer you all sorts of tips and tricks and new ideas – whether you know what you want already or you want to be taken completely by surprise!

This show has inspired us to finally travel to Costa Rica for a month to watch the wildlife – which was one of my best travel experiences yet – as well as numerous other trips and ideas!

I remember sitting in the Overland tours bus that was rolled into the hall watching a great video about Africa wondering where on earth anyone was supposed to go to the toilet!

So whether you are looking for inspiration or want to fine tune your ideas – this is the place!

Go to their website: Adventure Show 2010 for more details and to sign up for their newsletter…..

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Want to see a 7.5 meter-wide giant Manta Rays swimming around you?

Well, you can if you take part in a manta ray project anywhere around the worlds oceans. These giant rays live anywhere there are warm tropical waters – including the Maldives, Thailand, Baja California and all around the coasts of Africa.

Why Manta’s?
Manta Rays (Mantra birostris) is the largest species of ray in the world – and there are around 500 species of ray – and can reach up to 2,000kg or around 5000lb. Yet in water, they look like they are flying!

Although sharing much of their evolution with shark – rays have no true teeth and are filter feeders as a result, eating only plankton – not green volunteers!

Manta’s are also extremely curious of humans and so will approach divers close up. Many tropical holiday resorts feed mantas all year round to make sure that they are around for the tourists. This isn’t always a bad thing – but don’t pick a destination that sells itself of semi-tame individuals – go for the wild ones – they are just a friendly!

Due to their size, manta rays are rarely ever found in aquariums, so seeing them in the wild is one of the only ways most people can get close!

Why Do They Need Help?
This species are classed an near-threatened according to the IUCN as they have reproduce at a very slow rate meaning numbers can be devastated by over-fishing or habitat loss.

Tourists coming too close to their feeding areas or breeding grounds could easily drive them away or prevent natural behaviour – putting them under stress. And there are plenty of people and un-reputable companies who offer diving and snorkeling in these sensitive areas.

Local communities need to see that there are other options for their time and money. If they can only make money by fishing, developing isolated beaches and running desperate ‘guaranteed manta ray tours’ then that is what they are going to do.

However, with education and further study, they may realise that the rays and their habitat are worth more in one piece – and for longer.

Who Can Help With This?
You can for a start, by not paying for a diving tour that doesn’t offer a completely beyond-all-doubt eco friendly and manta friendly trip! Make sure you seek out those trips that respect the environment and the wildlife in the seas – and let them know that that was the reason you chose them – remember demand makes things appear!

You can also join a society that support them or their habitat – without getting wet! Save Our Seas Foundation will willingly spend your donations on indepth research! You can read about all their projects and the people in charge of collecting and interpreting the data. You can also sponsor a Manta for free with Save The Mantas who carry out plenty of research.

Or, the best option is to join a volunteer trip that sets out to monitor their movements, feeding and breeding.

Volunteer Latin America are offering a Manta Ray project in Ecuador from 2 to 12 weeks – where you will help with photo-identification of the individuals living in the area by swimming with them!

African Impact offer a combined Manta Ray and Whale Shark conservation project in Mozambique. These projects can last from 4 weeks or much longer – as long as you are over 18 – with all meals included as well as plenty of close encounters!

I’ve seen these beauties swimming along the shores of the Maldives – albeit at the smaller end of the scale (about 1 meter wide) – and I think they really are worth learning more about!

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What is Ecotourism, and what does it mean today?
There are many interpretations of the word ‘ecotourism’ – even the spelling changes to eco-tourism or eco tourism! However, many consumers have a different impression of the word to the companies that are selling it.

For example, many companies seem to think that any holiday outdoors that may involve animals or wild areas is ecotourism.

Whereas consumers are hoping for something a bit more impactful and meaningful. And this includes real ethics, focus on the local communities and ‘treading lightly’ on the earth.

Below are a selection of areas that ecotourism should be focussed on and be able to prove!

Adding Value:
Ecotourism should be an efficient way to add economic value to threatened natural areas, endangered habitats and cultural sites.

As I have mentioned in previous articles – if you want something to be saved – you have to support it. By visiting areas that contain the animals or plants or people that you ‘love’ you are adding to their perceived value by that country and the community.

If you sit at home and talk about how ‘bad it is’ that Orangutans are being made homeless, dolphins in Mekong being poisoned or migrating birds being shot – you aren’t doing anything to save them!

Change your shopping habits to avoid illegally produced or badly managed palm oil and soya; join the WWF to support international projects; or travel to the Mediterranean and help volunteer projects to protect the birds yourself.

Offering Alternatives:
It should be seen as a way to provide simple job opportunities as well as alternative financial benefits for the local people. This way they don’t need to destroy their own natural environment to make a living!

For example offering alternative forms or agriculture – such as bee-keeping, or offering more fuel efficient stoves so families need to cut less wood to cook their food. It could also lead to more successful local businesses that helps make for a more stable lifestyle for all involved

Alternative Tourism:
Ecotourism allows for travel and holidays to take a different turn. It inspires a new kind of tourism that actually helps to improve natural conservation and cultural preservation with a much lower impact on the environment than ‘normal’ tourism.

This of course can make it more enjoyable for all those involved as it is more down-to-earth. The traveller gets to see the natural world as it should be, the tour operators get to make sure that the places we go to see are still there in 5 years time, the local inhabitants get to feel involved in their own future and communities, and of course the wildlife gets to carry on being wild!

Fasted Growing Travel Sector?
Ecotourism really is one of the fastest growing areas of tourism at the moment.

People want these types of holidays now – they want to support these environments, these people and these animals. They want to stop destroying every place they go, and they want to see travel companies doing their bit to change the face of world travel too.

Have you played your part? Got your friends and families to do the same?

The United Nations World Environment Day is coming – and you could be a part of it!

Can You Offer Your Skills To An International Cause?

Instead of your normal vacation this year, why not take a chance on a new experience and make a difference to somewhere else on the globe.

This years World Environment Day takes place on the 5th of June 2009, and hopes to make a huge impact on town, cities and the entire globe with a joint effort.

Run by the United Nations Environment Programme, such schemes involve governments, volunteer groups and private sector investors – all aiming to help out in some way, and contribute towards a better environment.

The aim of this years ‘day’ is ‘Your Planet Needs You – UNite to Combat Climate Change’ and (unless last minute changes are made to reflect recent world events) the host for 2009 is Mexico.

What Do They Do?
Well, here are the details from the UNEP site regarding an intended project in Kenya:

“Nairobi Members of Clean Up Young Youth Club (Eco Club Action) from EastleighHigh School in Nairobi Kenya With Global Peace Festival Kenya are making consistent efforts to remove trash from a 300 meter length of the Nairobi River.

This cleanup campaign has attracted dozens of agencies, hundreds of volunteers and various government offices to pull there efforts to restore this landmark feature that cut across Kenya’s capital city.”

You could be a part of that!

Or in Adelaide: “To celebrate World Environment Day and the 100th Birthday of the Park, the Friends of Blackwood Forest Recreation Park (FoBFRP) will held a planting day at the Park on 1 June 2008. Planting was planned along Minno creek where recent weeding had taken place.”

• Making A Commitment – look at achievable goals and stick to them.
• Get Energy Efficient – we hear all the advice about saving energy – but what have you actually done yourself?
• Buy Recycled – if recycling saves energy, make sure you buy recycled products to support it.

Closer To Home?
You could arrange your own event closer to home.  Liaise with an agency or society that you know well and wish support and organise your own event – for example:

• Get your local schools/offices to all help in a beach/woodland/town/footpath/river clean-up.
• Arrange a pledge system, where there is a discount for using public transport if tickets brought in advance or a percentage goes to charity to encourage less cars in town that day.
• Support your local open spaces, by organising a massive field trip for all the nearby schools or a ‘walk-to-school’ event.
• Organise a charity bike ride through an old town or along a cycle path to promote it’s eco credentials.

Or, check out their Alphabet Of Ideas, with 80 ways to celebrate World Environment Day, 2009