In 2007 Discovery Initiatives celebrated 10 years of spectacular achievement as pioneers in the field of nature travel.
We have raised over £750,000 in support of the world’s leading wildlife and conservation agencies, researchers and experts, and increased awareness of travel and conservation through newsletters, lectures and consistent media coverage. Furthermore we have voluntarily spearheaded collective action campaigns such as Travel Operators for Tigers in South Asia.
To mitigate the carbon dioxide released into the high atmosphere through your air travel we are giving £10 per client to Rainforest Concern. Rainforests have a central role to play in the slowing of climate change and yet we are removing forests from the planet at a faster rate than they can grow back. It is thus axiomatic to try and preserve the forests that we have rather than replanting.
Rainforest Concern was established in 1993 to protect threatened natural habitats, the biodiversity they contain and the indigenous people who still depend on them for their survival.
This small group trip carries a contribution towards:
The Wild Dog Metapopulation Project provides a direct link between the Carnivore Conservation Group and Oxford University's Wildlife Conservation Research Unit. Close ties to an outstanding academic department that specialises in resolving human-wildlife conflict and related conservation issues have strengthened the multidisciplinary nature of the project.
The Central Limpopo River Valley Research Project, which combines all the research programmes, including Elephants and leopard research ongoing within the Mashatu and Tuli Block region. Discovery Initiatives is helping to fund this project and its research teams through our Elephant and Leopard study tours in Botswana.
Our travel partners, accommodation, service providers and ground agents are all carefully chosen to ensure their commitment to the environment, most being quality, family owned businesses – reflecting the unique character of the places, the abiding hospitality of its people and the remarkable spirit of its wilderness.
Our belief that responsible tourism, especially nature and cultural tourism be promoted and achieved in a way that benefits the very people that are so often part of the conservation effort but most often excluded from its benefits. We can all help to promote through understanding and action that tourism can become conservation’s most important tool and its greatest ally.
We do not have all the answers, but we aim to make all our travel programmes seek as far as possible to change a negative and non beneficial interaction or action into a positive one.
Each travel programme, whether group or tailormade, will by its very nature have taken us and our local partners, ground agents and operators an enormous amount of reconnaissance, familiarization, planning, expertise, permission, equipment and logistical support, and for our research and study tours the garnering the support of institutes or other bodies. At all stages we try to plan our ventures with these objectives in mind.
Thus in setting up our journeys we will have endeavoured to:
- Gain the full backing and cooperation of the host nation’s authorities where necessary and to obtain permission for any study based trips from the relevant persons, ministries and community leaders.
- Undertake by us or our agents full and proper reconnaissance of each area of operation.
- Wherever possible to use local accommodation, food and services in planning the travel programme
- Plan our ventures so that the maximum benefit in terms of cultural interaction, awareness and understanding is achieved by both the local people and our participants.
- Ensure that clients see the full picture, are made aware of the issues and concerns facing the tribal communities we visit and the conflicts facing the conservation of wildlife and resources in each area
- Ensure that clients have been fully briefed about the host country, its customs, cultures and its sensitivities and sensibilities, through pre departure gatherings, tour leader briefings and/or tour dossiers.
- We ensure clients, wherever necessary, to act correctly and with due reverence and respect to cultures and customs and encourage the learning of key words of the local language to facilitate this.
- Involve the local community in planning and decision making at all times, employing them wherever necessary at acceptable rates of pay.
- Continually to assess the environmental, social and economic impact of our visit, so as to avoid over dependency.
- Avoid patronising, insulting or demeaning tribal people in marketing, advertising, or when interacting with them.
- Avoid any activity that results in cruel treatment of animals, or interference in their natural way of life.
- Continue to support their work after our departure, and to raise awareness through talks, lectures and in the press of the issues raised or uncovered.
- Garner the support, backing and expertise of experts, learned institutions, non-governmental organisations and sponsoring companies for separate ventures as needed.
