Staying at a sustainable hotel is a great way to minimize the impact of your vacation – but what about when you leave your hotel? The businesses you support, attractions you see, transportation you use, and virtually everything else you do will all have some effect on the environment and local community. The only way to be sure of your impact would be if the entire destination was sustainable. Sound impossible? Thanks to the work of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), sustainable destinations are now on the horizon.

The GSTC created the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria, which are a set of widely used standards that hotels and tour operators must reach in order to be considered sustainable. More recently, in addition to targeting individual tourism businesses, the GSTC has turned their attention to creating a set of criteria that encompass destinations as a whole.

According to the GSTC website, "Destination stewardship is a process by which local communities, governmental agencies, NGOs, and the tourism industry take a multi-stakeholder approach to maintaining the cultural, environmental, economic, and aesthetic integrity of their country, region, or town." In other words, destinations are best protected when all of these groups – private citizens, government, and businesses – work together in a coordinated effort to protect their home. All destinations are different, so the criteria are meant to be a set of minimum standards that each destination should add to or adjust based on its unique needs. The goal of the criteria is to maximize social, economic, and environmental benefits for host communities.

Overseeing this process will be a "tourism management organization," or a group responsible for a coordinated approach to implementing sustainability. This will mostly likely be formed by a government agency and/or non-profit organization. This group would be responsible for establishing and implementing an overarching sustainable tourism strategy that considers environmental, economic, social, health, and safety issues, and was developed with public participation. Climate change adaptation, equal access for people with disabilities, and prevention of sexual exploitation are some key aspects of the destinations criteria.

Last year, the GSTC released a set of draft criteria for sustainable destinations based on input from experts around the globe. All interested persons and organizations were able to comment and suggest improvements during the public consultation phase, which ended last month.

Now, some early adopters have been selected to test and provide feedback on the destinations criteria. Most recently added were the Cusco-Sacred Valley-Machu Picchu corridor in Peru and the shores of Lake Llanquihue, Puerto Varas, and Frutillar in the lakes region of Chile. These destinations were specifically chosen because of their demonstrated interest and commitment to sustainable practices. But it is the GSTC's hope (and ours!) that this is the next step toward a world in which sustainable tourism--and sustainable destinations--are the norm.

This entry was posted on April 25, 2013 at 2:38 PM and has received 1326 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Vea esta publicación en español.

Chiloé Island in southern Chile has a tourist attraction that many consider surreal: a sunken forest of dead trees. In 1960, a strong earthquake caused a tsunami that flooded the valley Chepu, leaving behind hundreds of dead trees.

Today you can tour the Chepu River wetlands in a kayak. This photograph from Chepu Adventures Ecolodge shows a dawn excursion amid the the famous dead trunks.

This entry was posted on April 19, 2013 at 2:24 PM and has received 1040 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Vea esta publicación en español.

This striking picture from the Tirimbina Rainforest Center in Costa Rica shows the giant parrot snake (Leptophis ahaetulla). Their average length is 5 feet, but they can exceed 7 feet!

The giant parrot snake, also known as the green vine snake, is agile and fast. They live mostly in trees and are active during the day. They are often seen actively hunting tropical frogs and lizards on tree branches or in shrubby vegetation in swampy areas. Their bite can be painful, but the venom is not fatal to humans.

This snake is found from southern Mexico to Chile and southern Brazil.

This entry was posted on March 22, 2013 at 12:16 PM and has received 1264 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Eight years ago, Fernando Claude and his wife Amory felt the urge to leave the big city and find a simpler existence. While many of us harbor this distant dream, Fernando and Amory actually did it--they sold all of their belongings, moved to the remote island of Chiloé off the central coast of Chile, and began their new life. With no running water, no jobs, and only an old military tent for shelter, they found happiness living in harmony with nature. Over the years, they built a sustainable ecolodge so they could share their experience with others. We spoke with Fernando about Chepu Adventures and what travelers can get out of a visit to Chiloé.

Q: When and why did you decide to open the lodge?

Claude: In our early fifties, my wife and I moved from the big city of Santiago, Chile, to live on Chiloé Island. We didn't know anything about nature--we were city people! We wanted to build "our life project" in Chiloe and live completely self-sufficiently for two years without spending any money at all.

With that goal in mind, we arrived in Chepu and started living in an old military tent, spending our days building a little shack, growing our own vegetables, collecting rainwater, and producing a little electricity with a small wind generator. We used the advice of an old farming manual. What we couldn't produce, we traded for with our neighbors.

During this two-year process, we learned a lot about sustainability, nature, construction, renewable energies, and more. It was a trial-and-error education! Our lives and spirit were reloaded with energy and optimism and the best thing of all is that we began to know and understand nature. When you live in the city, nature is something distant, but when you are able to experience how wonderful it is, you begin to understand and be amazed by it. Once you love nature, you feel the urge to protect it.

For the first time, we felt like we owned our destiny. One day, some tourists requested to rent our kayaks, and they liked the area so much they asked if they could camp on our property. It was then that we decided to set up a small campsite and kayak rental service as a way to earn a little money. In the past eight years, it's grown into a full-fledged lodge.

Q: What makes your location, Chiloé Island, special?

C: In 1960, an earthquake caused the ground to sink a few meters, creating a haunting and beautiful sunken forest in the Chepu River Valley. You can kayak between the logs and tree branches and observe the wildlife that has adapted to this unique ecosystem.

Chiloé is a magical island full of culture, mythology, traditions, and blessed natural beauty. The wooden churches built by the Jesuits were named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, and you can also find some interesting historic Spanish forts.

Q: What kinds of wildlife can guests expect to see at your hotel?

C: Our place is rich in bird life, with more than 100 different species. It's common to see cute river otters escorting your kayak along the river, as well as other mammals like the coipo, a large semiaquatic rodent. You can find also one of the smallest species of deer walking on our garden, the pudú.

Q: Tell us about your electric kayaks – how are they different from traditional kayaks and what are the benefits?

C: Electric kayaks were an innovation created by bird and mammal watchers. Their electric motor uses deep cycle batteries that are recharged only with wind and solar power, so they do not have any carbon footprint and don't contaminate the water. They are also completely silent, so animals are not scared off. The kayaks have two comfortable seats and you can safely carry photographic equipment.

Q: How does your business benefit the local community?

C: We always try to have good relations with our neighbors and involve them in tourism activities. We hire local people to work with us and buy local produce as much as possible, such as honey and vegetables. We hire local boaters for bird watching tours and transporting our guests down the river.

Q: What are some of your noteworthy sustainability initiatives?

C: Nature is our main supplier. Our electricity comes from the wind and sun, and our hot water from solar heaters. All of our water comes from the rain and is filtered by the soil. We separate our garbage and compost our organic waste.

We are committed to protecting the environment in all of our activities. Our latest innovation is a computer software program that we designed ourselves to control our use of water and electricity. With this new technology, we can teach our guests and help them understand their impact. We assign them a certain quota of electricity and water for their daily use, and they report how much water and electricity they use on an LED screen in their rooms. For us, technology and sustainability goes hand-in-hand.

Q: Why is sustainability so important for your hotel?

C: We have two main reasons. First, we are located in an area with no water supply -- the one and only source of water is rain. Therefore, we must be sustainable in order to have a secure water supply during the dry summer months.

Second, we truly believe that a sustainable way of life is the only way. We share our experience with our guests and show them how much can be saved with very little effort. We are sure that after their visit, many of our guests will continue the sustainable practices they've learned.

Q: Of all of the hotels in the area, what makes Chepu Adventures special?

C: We are in a rural area far from the city, in a place that is still uncrowded and simple. Now that we are becoming more well-known, more people are coming to visit the area, giving our neighbors the chance to start earning income from tourist products and services.

There are so many businesses that talk about sustainability without any meaningful commitment, so we want to be a real example of sustainability in Chile. That is why it is so important for our claims to be backed up by sustainability certifications. Every day, more people come to live our eco-experience. Sustainability is our passion and the desire to live out of the "system" encourages many people to follow our example.

This entry was posted on March 13, 2013 at 10:20 AM and has received 1002 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.