Responsible Travel in Nepal and India

Our porters in Nepal and India and other mountain regions always carry efficient kerosene or other liquid fuel stoves. This adds significantly to our costs but maintains our minimal impact policy and commitment to responsible travel, ensuring that our trips do not contribute to deforestation and associated erosion or loss of biodiversity in regions which are struggling with these serious threats.

Our local employment policy and high standards of training in first aid leadership, communication and high altitude trekking ensure that our travellers receive the best possible care on their trip. Our employment of local people wherever possible has many benefits for our travellers, our hosts, and for us:

•	There is no better person to teach you about the landscape and culture than a local person. Employing local people ensures that World Expeditions’ travellers receive credible knowledge and treatment. Local intelligence underpins our ability to operate genuine ‘off the beaten track’ experiences away from commercial travel routes.
•	Employing local people ensures a good proportion of participants’ trek fees remain with the people who are custodians of the places and cultures visited.
•	Our expert staff training team is introducing effective skills in developing nations such as top quality remote area first aid techniques.
•	English language, leadership and communications skills are fundamentals in our training process. World Expeditions provides opportunities for personal advancement, industry-leading conditions and inspiration in communities where employment conditions can be very harsh
•	World Expeditions employs a generous number of porters on trek in order to implement our minimal impact policies. These extra porters carry kerosene fuel in and take rubbish out. World Expeditions pay porters a per kilogram cash bonus for rubbish returned at the end of the trek.
•	This policy has been implemented to combat the habit of disposing unnecessary waste into glaciers and over cliffs.

Responsible Travel in Africa

World Expeditions’ East Africa operations has been in service since 1993 and enjoys very low employee turnover largely due to the care given to the well-being of employees; we pay above the market rates for staff, both permanent and temporary. Since the work is seasonal, we employ a policy for full time employees that encourages them during the off-season to either remain at home with their families (because they can be away from their families for up to 4-5 months in the peak season) or to take up work with other companies. Many other companies would prohibit them working for another company hence limiting their earning capacity.

We insure our full time employees with hospital and outpatient cover. A percentage of the company turnover (approx 7% of the profit) is re-distributed to the staff via a bonus scheme so that they share in the company’s success. All staff are trained in first aid which is updated every three years. Loans are given to full time employees on a 0% interest basis and our staff are multi-tribal/ethnic; with no one tribe dominant in the ethnic makeup of the entire staff.

Our porters working in the mountains are also well cared for. The maximum a porter is allowed to carry is 16 kgs and each porters load is weighed before every departure. All porters in Kenya must be members of the Mt Kenya porters association which provides their insurance. We issue pullovers to all porters working in the mountains and porters are simply not allowed to work in the mountains if they are inadequately dressed. We supply food and shelter for the porters as well as access to medical supplies.

We purchase food locally and will use local products over imported items wherever possible. We ensure that our rubbish is taken off the mountain and we use gas instead of wood-burning fires for cooking.

Our Africa program also has a long standing policy of camping rather than using hotels for two reasons. Firstly, up to 90% of hotels in East Africa are owned and operated by large corporations and the profits don’t trickle down to the local people. Secondly, most East African hotels do not follow true sustainability practices - it is common for them to use firewood cut from World Heritage areas to provide energy for tourists.

Our safari routes are set so drivers never have to drive more than 8 hours in a day and never up to 8 hours for more than two consecutive days. Our routes vary each time so the tourist footprint is lessened, and when out walking we employ local guides. We avoid the tourist shops and commercial villages, and encourage our travellers to purchase curios and products directly from the people who make the items.

Over recent years we have operated a number of Community Project Trips mostly to improve the education infrastructure in countries like Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia. A good example of this work is the Mekerabia School Project in Ethiopia’s Simien Mountains. In 2003, a World Expeditions trekking group met with the remote Mekerabia community and it was decided to contribute to the creation of a school. The community leaders trekked with the group for three days to town and the group purchased roofing iron and nails to begin construction.

Every trekking group since has contributed to the school, funding desks, chairs, and educational materials. Within 12 months the new school had enrolled over 700 local children, the community leaders had created a viable school and the Ethiopian government had begun to support the school with professional teachers and curriculum.

Responsible Travel in Peru & Bolivia

We have been practicing responsible tourism since we began operating in Peru over 25 years ago and it continues to be an integral consideration from the planning to the implementation of all of our adventures in South America.

Fundamental to our philosophy are the concepts of respect and responsibility. That is, respect and responsibility for the environment and all the people we work with and come into contact with.

We endeavour to be model employers, paying all our staff above award wages, as well as providing a wide-reaching system of support and financial assistance, which extends to all camp-hands, porters and their families in the case of medical emergencies.

On the trail we insist that our camp-staff and porters effectively have the same services as our travellers, including having their own sleeping tents which is contrary to many companies who make their staff and porters sleep in the cook and dining tents which often have no floors. We provide nutritious food and cooking facilities for our porters so they can be independent of the camp regimes as they often prefer to eat and go to sleep much earlier than our travellers, in anticipation of an early start to prepare breakfast for our group. We provide proper vehicles to take our staff to and from the trail head rather than the open trucks so often used by other companies. We adhere strictly to all guidelines regarding the weight of porters loads (no porter ever carries more than 20kgs).

We have also introduced a system of interest-free loans for our camp staff and porters, paid back in small installments. Over the years, this scheme has lent in total over $200,000 to enable scores of local people to buy land, work vehicles, materials to build houses and set up small businesses.

We carefully consider the many requests we receive for donations to local community and school projects. We are one of the main donors for the Ollantaytambo Medical Centre which provides medical services to a huge area near the Sacred Valley where the majority of people who work in the adventure travel industry live.

We have worked on innumerable large and small projects over the years. Not only do we provide financial support, we also engage in active collaboration; we meet with members of local communities to discuss needs and ways to execute projects, as well as detailed interactive planning. We maintain contact for the duration of the project and maintain an ongoing interest.

Many of our staff have worked with us for over 20 years. We have continued staff training in the form of regular work shops and training sessions. Our guides are all Peruvian who facilitate constant dialogue regarding local life and customs.

Our local operations are a fully licensed and registered Peruvian company and we consider it very important that we put money into the economy through the payment of taxes. Companies which require their travellers to bring cash for local payments are by-passing the tax system.

For us, responsible travel is providing a safe and professional service to our travellers. Local transport often means the use of substandard vehicles and overloading the already stretched local bus services. Instead, we provide appropriate and safe private transportation.

Having worked in Peru for over 25 years, we are very conscious of changes accompanying globalization and increased tourism and the often devastating effects on the environment. Our main administrative office is totally paper free.

We have a zero litter policy but several years ago decided to take things further by introducing a unique and innovative system to reduce waste. Until relatively recently plastic bottles were virtually unknown in Peru. Nowadays drinking water and most soft drinks are sold in nonreturnable plastic bottles. There exists virtually no infrastructure or facilities for recycling plastic. Plastic bottles at best end up in landfill but vast quantities are washed away with other rubbish into the rivers. Although we actively support annual clean-up initiatives we feel that a far better way to address this increasingly serious problem is to drastically reduce the number of plastic bottles that our travellers use during their stay in Peru. For the past five years, we have been successfully operating a system which we estimate, to date, has saved about 100,000 plastic bottles from being used and thrown away. We have invested in refillable water dispensers which we have installed in the hotels we use in Cusco and the Sacred Valley. Our staff ensure that these water dispensers always have a supply of fresh drinking water.

Responsible Travel in Australia

While Australia enjoys a high standard of living, there are a myriad of threats to the environment.World Expeditions actively campaigns to protect the environment when outside forces threaten natural values of the land. We’ve campaigned on the ground, in media, within boardrooms and Government offices and we will continue to fight for the environment.

Examples include:

•	Campaign to stop the proposed Pulp Mill in Tasmania’s Tamar Valley, in association with the Greens Party (2007)
•	Campaign to end logging and wood chipping of Tasmania’s high conservation value forests, an ongoing campaign
•	Campaign to keep helicopter tourism out of the Tasmanian South-West Wilderness World Heritage Area, in association with Tasmanian Greens and Friends of the Quiet Land (1999/2000)
•	Campaign to ensure that the Mt McCall 4WD track (SW Tasmania) is closed and rehabilitated as intended under the World Heritage Management Plan, in association with The Wilderness Society (1998)
•	Campaign to prevent the construction of the Jabiluka Uranium Mine in Kakadu Northern Territory (1997-98)