The ethos behind Inglorious Bustards´ Nature tourism has always been to use travel to bring positive outcomes for biodiversity in the places we visit and beyond. We came to the ecotourism industry from a background in sustainable agriculture, travel and conservation, full of ideas about how the market can be used to drive conservation initiatives, and determined to put these into practice across the East Atlantic Flyway.
Our Sustainability Journey – Latest
In 2020, Niki completed the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC)´s training course in Sustainable Tourism delivery. This excellent learning programme gives a full understanding of GSTC´s Sustainability Criteria and how to apply them appropriately to a tourism business or organisation of any size or scope.
It teaches the importance of having a sustainability reporting and management system in place, to make sustainability achievements measurable, and to help move towards continuous improvement. To this end, we produced a document detailing our present situation according to GSTC Criteria and also our sustainability journey from the beginning and into the future.
It´s taken some time (happily since the world reopened we´ve been a bit busy doing ecotourism things, and only just found time to write them all down!), but we´re now ready to publish the second edition of our Sustainability Management Report and Plan, covering 2021 – 2023.
Here are some of the highlights!
- Since 2016 we have forged partnerships with environmentally-focused charities, non-governmental organisations and businesses across the East Atlantic Flyway, through which we are able to deliver meaningful conservation work on the ground. Highlights include contribution of over 1500 volunteer hours to raptor counts and seabird monitoring programmes in The Straits of Gibraltar through Fundación Migres, and funding an ongoing mangrove forest restoration project in The Gambia through The Gambia Bird Watchers Association – totalling 35ha by the end of the reporting period and growing every year since!
- Since 2016 we have sought to use sustainably-produced, culturally-relevant food to provide an engaging bridge between peoples, cultures and Nature. Highlights include meals with local families in the Rif Mountains of Morocco´s Talassemtane National Park and in The Gambia where we can share food and learn about traditional life, and visits to artisanal salt pans in Cádiz, where our guests can learn about the skills and sustainable practices around traditional salt production as well as having a try themselves.
- Since 2016, we have been reinforcing the positive socio-economic impacts of caring for biodiversity by ensuring that all our regular accommodation providers and restaurateurs across the East Atlantic Flyway are owned and run by local residents and employ local people. We work with our colleagues to eliminate single-use plastic from group meal times, improve on-site recycling facilities and reduce carbon footprint through offering more high-quality vegetarian and vegan meals prepared with local, seasonal food. We also employ and train local guides across our destinations.
- Since 2016 we have reduced single-use plastic waste from our picnics to practically zero.
- Since 2017 we have measured, reported and audited all energy used and resulting Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHGs) related to and resulting from our business, transport, food and hotel stays via World Land Trust carbon auditing service, and then carbon-balanced them in their entirety through the same organisation.
- In 2018 we introduced the policy of having at least one meat-free day per trip, instantly reducing the carbon footprint of mealtimes by around 15%.
- In 2019 we developed and launched our #FlywayPromise, our first sustainability pledge to our guests, colleagues and conservation partners that we would strive to meet the challenges of responsible ecotourism, and documenting how we would go about it.
- In 2019, 2020 and 2021 we were awarded the accolade of Top Ethical Birding Ecotour by Terra Incognita.
- In August 2020 we joined the Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency movement, announcing our declaration of a Climate Emergency and pledging to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) targets, and make calls to action for travellers, hoteliers, tour operators and more.
- In 2021 we launched our not-for-profit arm, the Flyway Birding Association (FBA), an asociacion sin animos de lucre registered with the Junta de Andalucía. Through this organisation we identify conservation projects in our main areas of operation along the East Atlantic Flyway, and determine and record financial contributions.
- Since 2022 we have led by example and brought suppliers with us on our sustainability journey. Progressive attitude changes have included a boat-trip provider who now carbon balances all CO2 emissions from excursions, the collaborative design and launch of a 100% vegetarian/vegan menu for a 7-night birding and sustainable food trip; a shift in attitude to offer a plant-based menu option to the whole group alongside the usual meat and fish options, instead of as an afterthought only available to strict vegetarians/vegans; offering iced tap water instead of bottled water at dinner as a matter of course; the removal of single-serving plastic condiment packets.
- Since 2022 in The Gambia, where bottled/treated water is essential, we have supported our suppliers to source treated water in large returnable and refillable water containers, eliminating c.250 single-use plastic bottles per trip. In a country where recycling facilities are non-existent and plastic pollution is a huge problem, we consider this to be a major triumph. Our local suppliers benefit financially from this change because it is cheaper to buy water this way. As far as we know we are the first travel company to do this in The Gambia, and our suppliers can now advocate to other companies, potentially eliminating the journey to landfill – and often the ocean – of many thousands of single-use plastic bottles each year.
This of course brings challenges! As conservationists, we are only too aware of the environmental impact of the activities associated with tourism. We want to share the joy of watching wildlife all along the East Atlantic Flyway, but in doing so we inevitably encourage consumption of the planet´s resources.
We launched our #FlywayPromise in 2019, making a pledge to our guests, colleagues and conservation partners that we would strive to meet the challenges of responsible ecotourism. We call this concept #FlywayBirding, putting conservation action and education at the very heart of what we do, to ensure our operations benefit rather than exploit wildlife. On our trips, “eco-tourism” is a promise, not an oxymoron.
Truly sustainable, responsible ecotourism is essential in supporting local economies and preventing the destruction of habitats that not only host much of the world´s biodiversity but provide essential ecosystem service functions such as carbon sequestration. It thereby provides overall net benefit to biodiversity conservation and the wider environment.
The criteria and themes of sustainable tourism are wide-reaching, covering cultural, socio-economic and natural heritage. As a small tour operator, it is not within our scope to change the tourism industry alone. But we can have a positive impact on our little corner of it – traveling to both experience and help nature – as well as holding up a light for others, illuminating the art of the possible.
The theme about which we are most passionate and where we are able to exert the most influence through our small conservation-based travel company is the interconnectedness of habitat and species conservation, food choice and carbon footprint. We believe a nature-watching tour can and should deliver exemplary responsible wildlife-watching and insight into local and global conservation issues. It should link local sustainably-produced food with local natural, cultural, and culinary heritage. We believe that all these things go indivisibly hand-in-hand. This is the central theme of our Sustainability Management Report and Plan, and the area in which we particularly aim to excel.
The report follows the sustainability criteria set out for tour operators by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council. They are designed to cover everything up to large tour operators with many staff and their own properties, so not all are applicable. Using guidance and training from GSTC we have used this document to demonstrate what we are doing to fulfil applicable sustainability criteria across the board, and where our journey will take us next.
We hope you like it!
The full report is available for download here: