 REI-Wanderlust Tours Service Project Team
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Sustainable Tourism for Wanderlust Tours
The manner in which we guide our daily decisions for the operation of our tours is what we consider sustainable tourism. Its appearance in words here is not “sexy” in the sense of marketing, but it is the heart of what we embody. The magic is found on one of our amazing tours! So read on, and then join us for a highlight of your life.
Our Ethic Statement
We hold great respect for the natural surroundings of our tours and hope to introduce people to delicate ecosystems while maintaining a low impact on the environment. Our guided, sustainable tours hope to instill awe in the natural world, and regard ecosystems with great respect. People want to see special places within the natural world, but they don't want their visit to harmfully impact those places.
Sustainable travel at Wanderlust Tours works to achieve authentic, intimate, meaningful and educational encounters between our guests and local natural sites. Sustainable tourism strives to create interconnectedness in local industry that contributes to the overall health of our local businesses.
At Wanderlust Tours our ultimate goal is to create awareness of nature using low impact, careful visits into our natural environment. We hope that by our practices, the areas we visit will remain healthy and intact for generations to come, and that our guests will gain a heightened respect for the environment which we visit and for the communities in which they live.
Come, share with us what we’re doing in Bend, Oregon.
Sustainable Daily Operations
Our office purchases recycled, recycles it again for our use and then let’s the recycle company do their thing in recycling. Our office energy is all from renewable sources. We contribute a monthly donation to help rebuild native fish habitat.
We transport our guests in one van to the tour site, thereby eliminating the need for individual vehicles to be used.
We pay attention to what we serve our food on and our drink in.
We offer a commute incentive program for our staff whereby employees are rewarded with gift certificates from locally owned businesses for biking, walking, running or carpooling to work.
We support local businesses as suppliers to our tours.
Carbon Sequestration Wanderlust Tours minimizes our use of natural resources in every step of business we take. However, we continue to have an impact on our environment by virtue of driving you, our guests, to the tour locations from the Bend area. While this is a proactive reduction of carbon emissions as we take 14 people canoeing, caving or snowshoeing in one vehicle, rather than 7 cars driving to the lake or cave, it is nonetheless emitting carbon into the atmosphere.
Wanderlust Tours has initiated a voluntary program for our guests to aid in minimizing or reversing the effect we have on air quality when we transport you to our fantastic tour locations. With your help we buy trees and plant them. Trees “house” carbon from our atmosphere and in turn this reverses global warming. With this effort we are intentionally sequestering carbon.
We add $1 per person to our tour prices to pay for tree seedlings. Wanderlust Tours matches every dollar received from our clients. An escrow account is set up to hold the funds until we purchase trees to plant at the proper time of year. We have done extensive research into the purchase of ponderosa pine whose seed stock is climate appropriate to central Oregon. We know the correct planting and subsequent protection techniques to ensure healthy tree growth. And the land on which we plant…
…we have partnered with Deschutes Land Trust http://www.deschuteslandtrust.org/ in Bend to plant the seedlings where restoration is needed. And there is a huge need for reforestation and subsequent sequestration!
Wanderlust Tours, Partnered with the Deschutes Land Trust and friends of Wanderlust invited through our newsletter (sign up on our homepage) will be planting trees at Camp Polk Meadow on Whychus Creek near Sisters, Oregon on September 18th 2010. Please join us for a fun, educational and rewarding day!
This project edifies our mission and ethic. Our entire staff is excited about this program! We are thankful for your willing participation in this program. We will offer the opportunity for you, your family or business association to plant trees with us which provides a substantial legacy for you and your children AND our earth.
Sustainability In Nature
Our environmental ethic is shared directly and indirectly on every tour.
We impart a message of care and conservation for the natural world on every tour.
We hope to send a practical message home with our guests to empower them to act wisely towards our natural resources.
We educate to build appreciation for our state’s flora, fauna and human history.
We impart low impact on the land resource and its inhabitants by virtue of the tours we choose to operate. Tours are human powered, such as canoeing, caving, hiking and snowshoeing.
We leave a natural site better than it was when we arrived by cleaning up after others.
We organize and participate in cooperative clean up events and plantings in the national forest.
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