Offset the carbon footprint of your holiday

Offset Your Carbon Footprint With The Worlds Best Indigenous Forest Projects

There are many carbon offset project that are well designed and create verified carbon offsets. But the best go way further. If you choose carefully, you can find projects that by their very nature are enormously beneficial to ecosystems and communities. For example, protecting existing forests, and encouraging their regeneration will impact big time on the life of the whole ecosystem. Biodiversity will benefit. Rivers and streams will flow. Soil erosion will be reversed. All of these ecological benefits will also benefit the people who live in and around the projects.

Included in every itinerary quote we give is a straightforward carbon footprint score for that holiday. We include the cost of offsetting the footprint as part of the final quotation with it being on average less than 2% of the total holiday price.

Through our carbon offsetting partner, C-Level, we can provide transparent options for you to offset the carbon footprint of your Far and Wild holiday.

C-Level believe carbon offsetting is a worthwhile action on carbon when 3 conditions are met:

• Burnt it, balance it – First, using carbon offsetting as the only way to balance your historic footprint. The damage is done. Take action to carbon balance by offsetting. Start a journey to change culture not climate. But not using it to enable a ‘business as usual’ approach to work and life…
• Something new in the world – Second, the offsetting project must be creating something of value in the world that did not exist before. Invest in genuine projects, create genuine benefits, meet the criteria of additionality.
• Balanced not just neutral – Third, its vital to look at the bigger picture. Take a more holistic approach and look at the whole system and all the relationships created by the new project. Choose projects that harness the combined power of ecosystems and communities to create carbon benefits in the form of credits to be used for offsetting your impact. This is what we mean by being Carbon Balanced…

The African sustainability projects they support

This area has been home to the Hadza for thousands of years and are 'the last of the first' hunter-gatherer communities in East Africa. The project works with both the Hadza and Tatoga Pastoralist community, bringing these two ethnic groups together, to protect an area of land which has been home to the Hadza for thousands of years. Their unique language, culture and their forest home is currently under threat of deforestation from outsiders looking for new grazing pastures and from farmers clearing land for crop production.

These forests provide food and shelter for the Hadza who are deeply connected to their land – without these ancient forests the Hadza’s culture and lifestyle would be lost forever.

These are the challenges the project is working to overcome.

• DEFORESTATION - Which is being caused by shifting agriculture where people from outside the communities illegally clear forest land.

• LAND RIGHTS - Finance generated by the project enables land rights to be strengthened and enforced across the Hadza's ancestral homelands.

• PROTECTION OF TRADITIONAL LIFESTYLES - The Hadza are a tiny group of people unique to their area and are some of the last hunter gatherers on Earth. They are a living link to an ancient way of being that aligned with the earths systems. Over 1000 Hadza still live around the Yaeda Valley.

Mangrove forests sequester vast amounts of carbon compared with land forests, but they are being cut down rapidly. They are also an essential part of vital marine ecosystems. They provide a breeding ground for fish and a buffer between land and sea.

Mikoko Pamoja means “Mangroves Together” – and that is exactly what is happening. Instead of cutting down Mangroves, the villagers are protecting these “Blue Forests”.

These Blue Forest projects are a model for mangrove villages around the world. They are the first community project to use the sale of bio carbon credits from the mangrove ecosystem to bring conservation and development together.

These are the challenges the project is working to overcome.

• DEFORESTATION & MUD CARBON - Mangrove forests are extremely carbon-dense ecosystems with most of the carbon stored in the mud soils. Mangrove Forest is being rapidly lost along the East African coast. Nearly 1% of the Mangrove Forest is being lost each year in Kenya. This loss of of forest means loss of the below ground carbon or Mud Carbon.

• VITAL NATURAL RESOURCES - Mangrove ecosystems provide vital resources for villagers close by. They can be a source of sustainable fuel wood in an area where 95% of the population use wood for cooking. They are also at the heart of the fishery and are the major source of protein to the villages along the coast.

• COASTAL PROTECTION - The parts of the Kenyan coast that have already lost their mangrove forests are receding at almost 1 m per year. Where the mangroves remain intact coastal erosion and the incursion of salt water are prevented by the forest.

Tree’s For Global Benefits (TGB), the UN SEED 2013 Global Award Winner, is a carbon sequestration and community livelihood programme in Uganda, linking small scale landholding farmers to the voluntary carbon market.

It delivers long term, verifiable socio-economic and environmental benefits by recognising and supporting small scale community farmers who undertake sustainable, ecosystem focused, forestry and agroforestry projects.

Ecosystems and carbon sequestration are enhanced as farmers are rewarded for pursuing practices such as indigenous tree planting and protection of wildlife corridors. Through diversification of crop, and access to the carbon market, rural farmers and their families experience heightened income stability, food and fuel security.

Trees for Global Benefit won the 2013 UN SEED Award for being an exceptional social and environmental low carbon enterprise. The award recognizes TGB’s achievements in innovation and entrepreneurship so far, its promising efforts to promote economic growth, social development and environmental protection in Uganda, and not least the potential of its partnership to inspire others.

These are the challenges the project is working to overcome.

• Land use by farmers
  As extreme weather events and heightened seasonal variations become more commonplace, the challenge is to reduce vulnerability from drought, flood and landslide risks that threaten community livelihood. Farming must diversify production strategies and refrain from pursuing deforestation.

• Ecosystem connectivity
  Wildlife corridors are dwindling as tree cover is routinely removed adjacent to protected areas. Rejuvenation of natural forest cover supports soil binding, enhancing ecosystem resilience, and enabling heightened ecosystem connectivity.

• Community food, fuel, and income security
  Communities are threatened with food, fuel, and income security as unsustainable deforestation practices result in vulnerable social and ecological systems. Communities need to be supported in pursuing eco-conscious farming. By linking farmers to the global carbon market, it can diversify their livelihoods and reward them for pursuing sustainable practices.