With a population exceeding one billion India's wild habitats and the biodiversity they contain are increasingly pressurised by population growth, economic expansion, deforestation, persistent poaching and habitat destruction.  Contributing to this in no small way is tourism, not excepting wildlife tourism, which brings with it a host of unwelcome and often unforeseen negative impacts – pollution, traffic, construction, a supplementary strain on resources, and consequent social tensions.  Accompanying these concerns however is the growing recognition that tourism can also bring an array of benefits, particularly to developing countries and isolated rural communities.  Wildlife tourism in particular has the potential to effect the greatest change since it is conducted off the beaten track in areas often bypassed by mainstream itineraries.  If developed in a responsible way that minimises its negative effects, empowers local communities and contributes to the welfare of the natural environment, tourism has the potential to become the greatest tool for conservation in India and throughout the world. 

Because we believe that wildlife travel should not be conducted to the detriment of its subject we aim to contribute in tangible ways to the natural environment that is the focus of our tours, operating with a responsibility towards the long term future of India’s natural heritage.  It is our ongoing commitment to minimize any and all negative environmental impacts of our operations while making positive contributions to the conservation of biodiversity and habitats. 

Furthermore it is our belief that responsible and sustainable travel to natural areas fosters better understanding and appreciation of the environment, eventually aiding conservation.  By making our tours informative and honest we provide a real insight into India’s wilds and the conflicts they face.

Making environmental awareness inherent in our office practices

We avoid the trend of producing promotional cd’s and print only a limited amount of brochures, preferring to rely on our website, e-newsletters, and above all personal recommendations as our main sources of information distribution and promotion, and on email as our main method of communication, thus reducing paper and plastic wastes at source.  Any stationary or publicity we do produce is printed where possible on recycled paper or material procured from sustainable sources.  Where we do place advertisements we do so in the magazines of prominent wildlife organizations, such as the Oriental Bird Club or Bombay Natural History Society, or in magazines that are a voice for conservation, such as Sanctuary Asia, to support their valuable work.

Empowering host communities & changing the perception of the natural world
Let’s put it simply; local communities often come into conflict with wildlife conservation, its advocates and practitioners through no fault of their own - when should the needs of wildlife exceed those of a family living in an isolated rural area on or below the poverty line?  Protected areas face severe challenges from rural communities as a result of encroachment, illegal grazing, poaching, man-animal conflicts and retaliatory killings, the demand, often external, for animal skins and parts, and shrinking forest cover to name just a few.  Wildlife and habitat protection requires strict enforcement but in a largely agrarian country such as India, where large numbers of people rely on their crops, livestock, and forest produce, in particular fuel wood, for their subsistence and livelihood this asks for a considerable degree of compromise from already marginalized communities when they are further denied access to use of resources. 

No conservation initiative can be viable in the long term without the support of the local populace whose needs must be considered an integral part of the project.  However it has often been the case that the same local communities that are the foundation of conservation are also very often excluded from its benefits, in particular from the financial inputs of wildlife tourism.  If developed in a responsible way that empowers local communities by creating employment in areas off the beaten track, wildlife tourism and the resultant association between protecting and exhibiting wildlife riches and a healthier local economy indicates to local people the importance of conservation and the inherent potential of the natural environment as a sustainable economic resource. 

Without exception every one of our tours, whether fixed departure or tailored, has been created following a great deal of personal reconnaissance, planning and expertise.  We are committed to providing financial benefits for the host community, with the intention that the environmental benefits of preserving wildlife into the future will be realized, strengthened in reality by the economical incentives of continuing wildlife tourism. 

We prefer to use small, locally owned and managed accommodation, preferably with some degree of environmentally sound practices, or in the least sympathy towards wildlife and its conservation, which ensures that funds created by our visits are channeled into local enterprises.  By employing local guides and encouraging the lodges we use to source their staff from their local community we also ensure that additional revenue is retained in the local community and that its members are given the opportunity to develop specialised knowledge and skills.  In addition our tour participants benefit from a guide with the best knowledge of an area, that of a local resident, and are given the opportunity to bring mutual understanding and respect between travelers and local communities. 

As an inherent part of their profile our birdwatching and wildlife tours take in parts of the country bypassed by conventional travel programs.  In addition, by incorporating some of India’s smaller or less publicized wildlife localities in our itineraries we aim to assist in the development of new locations with the aim of helping to publicize their natural riches both locally and globally, thus aiding their protection through wider awareness, while simultaneously supporting marginalized and often isolated communities.

Raising awareness among our tour participants

We provide all of our guests, whether joining a fixed departure tour or following a personalised itinerary, with simple guidelines on appropriate environmental practices during their tour, and on local etiquette to allow them to adapt to their new social environs and act with due reverence to local cultures and customs.  We will not hide or avoid the reality of environmental issues or conflicts facing the conservation of wildlife that we encountered during or of relevence to any tour, instead preferring to actively illustrate the problems among our guests in order to raise awareness of India's complex conservation issues. 

 
Lessening our on-tour footprint
Our tour group sizes are limited to minimize both environmental disturbance and potential negative social impacts, and while we prefer to explore mostly on foot we prefer to follow designated paths, to avoid damage to valuable habitats.

We try to maintain safe and appropriate distances when observing wildlife and will never intentionally intrude on any animal or obstruct its natural movements.  We actively discourage unnecessary disturbance to all wildlife, in particular the over-use of tape-lures for birds, irresponsible driving or the harassment of wild animals during jeep safaris, and pressuring mahouts to get too close to wildlife during safaris on elephant-back.  The same applies when searching for marine or riverine mammals, all of which are highly sensitive to disturbance and susceptible to injury from vessel propellers.  While we fully appreciate and understand the desire among our guests to see as many species as possible (particularly with regard to birds) we will not chase them just to increase a tour list; nevertheless our sightings are consistently impressive in terms of both target species and species numbers, birds and mammals.

We will never guarantee any wildlife sightings, not because we are not confident but since this can generate a misunderstanding of the Indian wilds; instead we encourage an enthusiasm for all forms of India’s wildlife and the experience of the wilderness in its magnificent entirety.  If you do miss a target species you can rest assured that you are nevertheless contributing to the support of its habitat, will have seen a host of other species, and have a good reason to return.

Support for conservation

We believe it is important to support and help conserve the habitats and wildlife that we enjoy, and to this end we donate to charitable organizations and projects working on conservation of birds or other wildlife and their habitats.  Some of our tours support specific organisations and further details are provided in individual tour dossiers.

>> India Nature supports WildSounds Commission for Conservation programme.  This UK-based international supplier of wildlife books, audio & multimedia guides, and field recording equipment will donate 5% from book and DVD sales, and 3% from the sale of electronic equipment, to our nominated charity, BirdLife International, for all online purchases made via the link below.  Please use this link to purchase your field guides, sound guides, DVD's, eGuides etc. and a valuable donation will be made to a charity with active conservation programmes in India.

BirdLife International is involved in projects that focus on species such as Forest Owlet and Great Indian Bustard, as well as those that take steps to address the drastic decline in Gyps vulture populations, through the Bombay National History Society, their partner in India.

Click here to begin shopping at WildSounds >>

Visit the BirdLife International website to read more about the Asian Vulture Crisis here >>
 

‘carbon-neutral’

Concerned about the impact of carbon dioxide emissions from our operations and travel we are currently working on making all of our fixed departure tours ‘carbon neutral’ through donations to carbon sequestration companies that use the donations to offset the carbon produced from all of our guide and participant domestic flights and vehicle use and neutralise our contribution to climate change.  Where possible such donations will be routed through active projects in India, making this particularly relevant to us.  We encourage our tour participants to offset the carbon emissions of their international flights through an additional donation.

Advocating a sustainable approach to wildlife tourism

Finally, by presenting a responsible image to other travel operator, we aim to encourage the evolution of the travel industry into an effective tool for environmental sustainability by demonstrating that it is possible to invest in the cause of conservation while running a successful business.  We encourage all other representatives and agents that we work with to consider their own operations and to formulate and follow similar guidelines of practice.