More Than Living

Green holidays in England and around the world

With gloomy stor­ies about global warm­ing, con­cerns about our carbon foot­prints and wor­ries over the envir­on­mental impact of air travel dom­in­at­ing the news, it might seem that hol­i­days aren’t exactly com­pat­ible with the green, eth­ical life­style we’re all encour­aged to have these days.

But our hol­i­days don’t all have to be about jet­ting thou­sands of miles to baste ourselves on a beach and guzzle one too many of the local resources. Sus­tain­able eco-​​tourism is becom­ing ever more pop­u­lar, and loads of organ­isa­tions run work­ing hol­i­days over­seas, allow­ing vis­it­ors to put some­thing back into the com­munit­ies they visit – and have a much more real and reward­ing travel experience.

Among these is World Wide Oppor­tun­it­ies on Organic Farms (WWOOF), a long-​​established inter­na­tional exchange net­work that offers board, lodging and prac­tical exper­i­ence in a vari­ety of dis­cip­lines, in exchange for work on organic pro­jects across the world – includ­ing within the UK. Whether you’d like to get involved in grow­ing veget­ables for the organic box schemes on small­hold­ings in rural Wales, help­ing to restore and revital­ise a tra­di­tional rural vil­lage in Bul­garia, or having a go at cul­tiv­at­ing bana­nas in trop­ical Belize, you’ll prob­ably find some­thing to induce you to become an enthu­si­astic Wwoofer, as par­ti­cipants are known.

ANY VOLUNTEERS?

If adven­tur­ous social pro­jects are more your thing, then the Brit­ish Trust For Con­ser­va­tion Volun­teers (BTCV) might be worth a call. They offer work­ing hol­i­days to many exotic des­tin­a­tions around the world, with new pro­grammes lined up each year.

Through BTCV you might find your­self spend­ing a couple of weeks in Leso­tho, help­ing create a new botan­ical garden near south­ern Africa’s highest water­fall. Altern­at­ively, you could be off to Albania’s remote and evoc­at­ive Butrint National Park, clear­ing under­growth, uncov­er­ing an amaz­ing archae­olo­gical site and help­ing to pro­mote eco-​​tourism in a poor and little-​​visited corner of Europe.

If you prefer to stay a bit closer to home, the BTCV also runs one-​​day con­ser­va­tion tasks all over the UK. They’re all year round, includ­ing week­ends, so there’ll always be some­thing you can take part in somewhere.

You can even make a reg­u­lar date to help out loc­ally, main­tain­ing foot­paths in con­ser­va­tion areas, learn­ing how to con­struct dry stone walls (a task of which Amer­ican Poet Robert Frost would surely have approved), plant­ing trees, or a host of other com­mend­able out­doorsy activ­it­ies. As well as get­ting some exer­cise and fresh air, you’ll also have the chance to make lots of like-​​minded friends and do your bit to help pre­serve your local environment.

If all that sounds a bit too much like poten­tial back strain, then there are still plenty of ways to sup­port ecologically-​​minded pro­jects while having a great hol­i­day. The Green Tour­ism Busi­ness Scheme is act­ively engaged in cham­pi­on­ing sus­tain­able tour­ism in the UK, giving offi­cial green seal of approval to environmentally-​​friendly hotels, res­taur­ants, tour oper­at­ors and vis­itor attrac­tions across the coun­try. All are assessed against strict cri­teria cov­er­ing such things as energy effi­ciency, use of local pro­duce, recyc­ling man­age­ment and sup­port of public transport.

Great news for anyone look­ing for a trip, without the guilt.

IMAGES by Flickr users Per Ola Wiberg and Ryan McD.

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Ori­gin­ally posted 2008-​​06-​​03 08:57:00. Repub­lished by Blog Post Promoter

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