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Environmental Issues and Conservation Measures
Casterbridge offers a wide range of environmental and conservation experiences and programs around the globe. These include regional insights into sustainability exercises, community development activities, and conservation projects.
These Planet Earth programs aim to develop a lifelong interest in conservation and the environment, as well as an enhanced personal commitment to sustainability. We hope they will promote understanding of local environmental issues, as well as a deeper understanding of the interrelatedness of ecosystems around the world.
All of our Planet Earth tours can be custom designed to have a strong environmental focus. Since all Casterbridge tours are unique, we will work with you to ensure your specific environmental focus is emphasized on your trip.
As required, we can ensure your tour concentrates on a variety of ecosystems and bioregions, to give your group a flavor of multiple biotas. They will experience for themselves the effects of global and local policies on the environment, and can then work with local people to mitigate those effects through environmentally friendly practices developed locally and proved to work locally.
Environmental Projects
Casterbridge Planet Earth is in the process of partnering with an extensive number of local environmental projects across six continents. These include reforestation and soil conservation projects, pollution projects in cities and smaller communities where sewerage and water pollution are severe problems. They include recycling projects and efforts to protect fragile ecosystems, such as coral reefs, rainforests, and deserts.
An Example: Volunteer Travel Program in Chile
Embark on a 14-day tour to Chile, with volunteer days in Santiago and the nearby Santuario de la Naturadeza Yerba Loca.
The tour begins in Santiago. You then spend six days working in the Santuario de la Naturadeza Yerba Loca nature reserve, where you will be building and repairing ecologically sensitive tourist accommodations, and making and erecting signs and markers on paths through the reserve. There will also be a two-day trek to La Paloma Glacier.
Sustainability Projects
Planet Earth also partners with a wide range of local sustainability projects around the globe. They vary from constructing sustainable bungalows in a nature reserve in Peru to recycling projects in New York and sustainable housing in New Orleans.
As part of Casterbridge’s commitment to the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria¸ we require our project partners to demonstrate they have in place an effective long-term sustainability management system that considers environmental, sociocultural, quality, health, and safety issues.
Conservation Projects
Planet Earth is then also involved with a host of local conservation projects around the world. We work closely with local organizations to provide genuine opportunities for service learning and volunteering. Examples include:
- Agroforestry and reforestation projects in Thailand and Vietnam
- Restoring watersheds in India
- Providing new animal habitats in California
- Protecting hillsides from soil erosion in Guatemala
- Working on a community solar latrine project in Kenya
Apply Classroom Lessons in the Field
In short, we can take classroom lessons or theoretical areas of study and see how they relate in very practical terms to the reality of an environmental or conservation project in a specific global region. We can take you to a variety of sites and let your group examine the realities and implications of real world situations for themselves.
By linking direct experience of an environmental issue with volunteerism, you will feel you are not merely observing, but are proactively engaged in helping to preserve the fragile ecosystems you have come to experiences.
Register to plan a group service tour with Casterbridge, either online or by calling 1-800-522-2398. Start planning your service travel program today!
