Our top 10 eco-hotels and lodges for their Conservation practices.

How do you know if the perfect hotel you’ve found is really doing everything they say they are to be sustainable and environmentally conscious or are they just ‘green washing’?

As attitudes change, businesses will always try to follow the trends, and hotels are no different.

There are so many different ratings and awards available for hotels and lodges that claim to be focused on being environmentally conscious that it can be very confusing, if not misleading!

Worse, some of the ratings are based on how much money a location can spend on the award itself, rather than purely on what they are achieving.

So, how do you make sure that the hotel you are going to visit is setting up long-term sustainability projects, and not just waiting to jump onto the next bandwagon?

This situation has become so complicated that Rebecca and Lionel of Kiwano Hotels decided they would create their own, called the “leaf status”.

There are 4 levels of leaf-ratings, from 1-leaf up to gold status.

Rebecca and Lionel know each location inside out. From how they deal with waste to how they get their power, source their food, and regenerate the environment that surrounds them.

Having researched each property and interviewed the owners or managers too, they then rate each location based on 9 categories:

• Architecture
• Conservation
• Energy
• Engage Guests
• Food
• Housekeeping
• Waste
• Water

The final category is Community, which looks at everything else the property, and its owners, are doing to help the community they live within.

Over these 10 articles, we are going to run down the top 10 locations in each category, whether they be a hotel, lodge, or self-catering, before giving you our top 10 eco locations you should visit if you want to make a positive difference whilst you explore the world.

This article is the 2nd one, and will look at Conservation.

You can find out more about the leaf rating here.

This category investigates how the properties look after the land they occupy and the surrounding areas.

Some of the things that the resorts may have done include:

• Have they employed a conservation team to protect the surrounding nature?
• Do they take part in coastal, forest or mangrove restoration?
• Are the staff and guests involved in conservation efforts?
• Are trees planted to compensate for CO₂ emissions?
• Are things like fishing and anchoring being forbidden?

Jungle Bay encourage lots of other communities and companies to be more environmentally conscious and take part in lots of different conservation projects.

These projects include:

• Beach clean-ups
• Sea turtle education programmes
• Forest protection schemes

They are also involved in a project that is working to reduce poverty and inequality through sustainable development in conjunction with UNDP (United Nations Development Programme)

You can find out more about their green policy here.

Turtles visit the beaches by the hotel and lay their eggs within the sand.

There are no beach-facing lights in the resort to make sure that they don’t confuse the newly hatched Turtle babies finding the ocean.

The hotel alerts guests to be aware of eggs that might be buried in the sand.

Certain areas around the property have been left untouched to encourage wildlife to inhabit the area, which includes wild rabbits and a variety of birds that visit the birdbaths around the gardens.

You can find out more about their green policy here.

The island management and villa owners have created an Environmental Programme and Committee to protect the conservation area and the rest of the island’s environment.

This committee has created a lot of special schemes that include:

• On-going beach clean-ups
• One of the island’s beaches is dedicated to turtle reproduction with a dedicated turtle watch team,
• The islands marine life is closely monitored working with local fishermen to maintain a sustainable fishing programme.
• No lobster is served from May to September during their breeding season.

There is also a coral regeneration farm to help protect the local ecosystem of the island.

You can find out more about their green policy here.

Cristalino Lodge sits within an enormous 11,399 hectares of protected forest.

Working with the Cristalino Ecological Foundation, they take part in environmental education, research, and sustainability in the Alta Floresta and Novo Mundo municipality.

The lodge has assisted on scientific research for a variety of topics including flora, birds, small and large mammals, jaguars, reptiles, amphibians, the climate, general conservation and more.

The lodge focuses on educating local children with immersion courses about the tropical ecosystem in association with the Foundation.

Their goal is to help the future generation have a positive relationship with the rainforest.

You can find out more about their green policy here.

Conservation is at the heart of Tiger Mountain’s principles, both on their own grounds, and beyond.

A range of monitoring programmes are run by the guides of the hotel to maintain checks on the local wildlife.

As part of these checks, they upload monthly counts to Cornell University’s e-bird database. They also report annual Asian Waterfowl Count to Birdlife International.

They also support local conservation charities such as WWF Nepal, National Trust for Nature Conservation, Annapurna Conservation Area Project and many more.

Guides at the lodge provide technical support to the local Forestry Committee, as well as lecturing and training to local conservation organisations. Senior staff also advise Bird Conservation Nepal.

The staff adhere to a natural maintenance policy in their gardens to maximise natural wildlife habitats.

You can find out more about their green policy here.

The hotel educates the local people in the importance of avoiding plastic with its plastic-free village campaign and clean-up initiatives throughout the valley. Through these schemes, they focus on how littering can be fatal to the local wildlife.

The hotel actively supports the Forest/Jungle Management Committee in conserving and protecting the forest.

One way they do this is by closing the forest, and only opening it up once every 2 years for firewood chopping in designated areas.

They stimulate and support replanting in areas that have previously been chopped, and support the committee to restrict the number of bundles that are allowed by each household.

Most households are involved in their organic kitchen gardens initiative in the village. This initiative aims to promote fresh vegetables grown in organic compost with the use of organic pesticides. It also protects bees and stimulates the production of honey.

They also advocated the banning of dangerous fishing practices in their “Phurse-Khola’ (Phurse river) which flows in front of their village.

You can find out more about their green policy here.

Amazon Yarapa River Lodge, with the assistance of the local villages, created a reserve of 4 hundred thousand acres, including several lakes as well as the Yarapa River.

They signed an agreement the Peruvian government, along with the local villages, in 2007 that prohibits commercial fishing in lakes in the reserve.

This agreement also states there will be no lumbering/forest clearing.

The lodge also works closely with neighbouring tribes to develop the Yarapa River Rainforest Reserve which encompasses 10 square miles of pure, undeveloped rainforest surrounding the lodge.

The reserve is now the official release spot for the ACOBIA manatee rehabilitation program, as well as being recognised by the Peruvian government’s national parks division INRENA.

The lodge has established a 1km square botanical garden and is working with the University of Peru in Iquitos. All the flora in the area has been tagged, ready to study by a renowned dendrologist.

The lodge guests and university students are able to Caiman, Anacondas, and a variety of aquatic birds living in a small pond located near the lodge itself.

You can find out more about their green policy here.

Gal Oya Lodge has setup a research centre for their own naturalists & guest scientists to use on-site.

This allows them to undertake a wide variety of conservation orientated studies in and around the local area.

They have partnered with the Wilderness & Wildlife Conservation Trust to undertake, for the first time, a long-term Leopard monitoring program inside of the National Park.

Guests can have a "hands-on role" doing research in and around the lodge and buffer zone. Using camera traps, they have discovered fishing cats!

They have also recorded mice, deer, jungle cats, jackals, wild boars, elephants, otters, pangolin, and more within the lodge grounds.

The research centre aims to identify all species living in this remote area of Sri Lanka to ensure their survival. They are also undertaking awareness programs in the local community, particularly with children, on the importance of conserving native flora and fauna and how to safely avoid dangerous encounters with animals such as elephants and snakes.

You can find out more about their green policy here.

Boulder Bay have partnered with an NGO called Project Manaia to ensure that their marine conservation projects are run in a truly considerate and scientific way.

Experienced marine biologists are employed by the resort to carry out surveys and assist in coral restoration programmes.

They have created coral nurseries using recycled fish traps at three different locations around the island. By encouraging new coral to grow, these nurseries will help to maintain biodiversity around the island.

To reduce damage to the coral, the resort has created permanent moorings for boats, so there is no need for them to drop anchors near the coral.

All of the resort’s findings are shared with the Marine Biology Department of Myeik University, as well as other operators in the region.

You can find out more about their green policy here.

The owner of Tranquilo Bay, Renee H. Kimball was the president of the Bocas Sustainable Tourism Alliance from 2009-2012.

She, and the hotel, are actively involved with many conservation organisations and projects including:

• BESO and Give and Surf charities that support the local children
• APTSO, a foundation supporting sustainable tourism
• The Bastimentos National Marine Park
• The School for Field Studies, which is hosted at the hotel.

They have created a 620-acre municipal reserve with the local indigenous communities to protect the trees. This work has provided roofing for this community and keeps the area safe from being developed on.

All the guides that the hotel uses for their excursions as also from the indigenous communities. They prepare trails for tourists to help them understand the indigenous life at Bocas del Toro.

The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute carries out a number of studies on the property including citizen science projects eBird and the Global Bid Day bird count.

They sponsor a scholar who studies the monkeys on Bastimentos and work with a graduate who studies the red frogs of Bastimentos,

Finally, they also volunteer as the “Vigilantes de Bastimentos” to help the Panamanian government agencies enforce the various environmental laws.

You can find out more about their green policy here.

Our "Climate Hero's" initiative is going from strength to strength.

Every booking we make now includes a climate hero contribution, which goes to support a range of environmental initiatives all around the world, with the aim of rewilding the earth.

This means that when you book with us, you’ll be helping the planet, so you can feel even better about going on holiday. 30 times better in fact! As our Climate Hero projects are 30 times more effective than most tree planting projects.

Find out more on our website.

Congratulations to Tranquilo Bay, Panama. A very worthy winner!

In our next blog, we'll look at how the Hotels and Lodges conserve and generate the energy they use.

To find out more, then please get in touch:

• lisette.julio-quinn@notjusttravel.com
• 07505 999 773
• lisetteandliam.notjusttravel.com

You can find all our blog posts about ecotourism on our website here.

Thank you to Rebecca Woolford and Kiwano Hotels.