Ecotourism
takes a closer look at travel
By Tara
Nelson
Imagine
a travel package that includes a multi-day stay at an antique
farmhouse on an organic farm in Umbria, Italy complete
with organic farming lessons and private cooking classes.
Add to that a stay at a 12th Century hilltop villa castle
with winding stone staircases and archways in an ecovillage
surrounded by olive groves in a tumbling hillside in Tuscany.
Or maybe
you would rather help natives reforest Hawaii’s
Monakea island for a day before retiring to an ecofriendly
tree house lodge on the south shore of the island for a massage
followed by fresh organic local food and a night of star-gazing.
These are the kind of sustainable travel packages offered
by Kara Black, owner of A Closer Look Travel on the Mt.
Baker Highway near Bellingham.
Black
said although Europe is home to many sustainable travel
companies and many U.S. travel agents offer special sustainable
travel packages for a premium price, A Closer Look is one
of the only American companies that focus almost exclusively
on sustainable travel.
“There
are lots of companies like mine in Europe,” she
said. “You can search and search and search,
and you won’t find any in the U.S. Of course,
they could be out there but I haven’t been able
to find them yet.”
Black’s
work experience ranges from social work to organizational
development, but she said she particularly likes working
with groups and has been organizing group events formally
and informally since the age of 18.
She
earned her bachelor of arts degree in education from Antioch
College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and her master of arts
degree in organizational management from Yale School of
Organization and Management.
Black
said she also facilitated several community groups in her
area such as parents groups and the Head Start policy council
during her time as administrative director for their King
and Pierce county offices.
She
is also a current member of the Whatcom Human Rights Task
Force in Bellingham. Most recently, she was the project
manager of the Duwamish co-housing project, a development
built on traditional hunting grounds of the Duwamish Indian
tribe near Seattle.
“So
I became a housing developer for a little while,” she
said. “I didn’t mean to because
my interest was in community, but it just
worked out that way.”
She
began working as a travel agent in 2003 for a Bellevue
agency but was unhappy with the company’s
ethics and, one year later, she started
A Closer Look Travel.
“They
actually had another employee who stole money from
one of my clients using their credit
card number,” she
said. “So I thought I could treat
my clients much better working on my
own.”
Black,
however, had been facilitating general travel to build
enough of a client base until this spring, when she changed
her focus to specialize in sustainable
travel, an umbrella term that breaks
down into three areas: environmentally
sustainable ecotourism, socially sustainable ‘voluntourism’ and
economically sustainable travel.
She
moved to the area two years ago from Seattle. She said she had been
familiar with Bellingham and the Mt.
Baker foothills through frequent hiking
trips. She said she fell in love with
the area’s many “stunning” trails
and found a progressive climate that
suited her business.
“I
knew I wanted to do something to do with organizing events
or travel and I decided on social change travel,” she
said. “All my previous work
before co-housing had been in human
services and social change had
always been really important to
me, so it just made sense.”
She
was also partially moved by a
trip she took to Jamaica in 1990 where
she experienced first hand, the
often drastic division between
poverty and wealth.
“I
was on the north side of the island
on the beach and there were
these huge houses and resorts with
white sand,” she
said. “Across the street
was just total and abject poverty.
It was so striking. You think
you’re really
visiting the local towns but
you’re not.”
And
what is sustainable travel?
Black said to understand sustainable
travel it helps to first understand
the methods of conventional travel.
A standard
trip, for example, might involve a cruise or laying on
a beach but accommodations would likely be in a facility
that’s isolated from the rest of the community.
Guests at such lodges often have little contact with people from
that community unless they
are servants, she said.
Those
accommodations tend also to use a disproportionate
amount of local resources,
making it expensive for the
community. Of course, the
community will still benefit economically – unless
those accommodations
are owned by multi-national corporations.
“Traditional
travel tends to be a resource-rich accommodation – in
other words, resource
expensive,” she said. “So
there’s high
resource use and disconnect
with the local community.
Sustainable
travel on the other
hand, has many goals
and usually a traveler
will have at least
some real contact
with local community members.
If you have a guide,
for example, maybe
you’ll
stay in their homes
or have some sort
of cultural experience
with them.
“Or
maybe you’ll
go to an artisan’s
place and actually
buy things from
the artisan rather
than through a
gift shop where
the artisan might
not get very much
for their work.”
Ecotravel,
on the other
hand, lodgings or tour
provider is specifically
doing something
that preserves,
enhances or educates about
the local environment.
“So
you may stay in a lodge where they’re
using solar power, using rain barrels or recycling materials,” she
said. “And
if you can
create an industry
that actually
relates to
conserving
resources,
then you’re
really making
a difference.”
Black
said a lodge
could qualify
as an ecolodge
that utilizes
wind or solar power,
or sustainable lumber, or
if a lodge simply supports
an industry that preserves
the environment.
Voluntourism:
the next level
Voluntourism
is a relatively new idea, in which individuals take a vacation
with the objective of making a positive difference in the
lives of others or help improve a community while on vacation.
According
to one recent study by the Travel Industry Association
of America, more than 55 million Americans have participated
in volunteer vacations and about 100 million more are
considering one.
Voluntourism
does not have to be all work, however, said Black. Often
times, volunteering will be limited to one or two days
and the connection fostered with local residents is often
more substantial than the work that’s completed.
“It’s
basically giving back as you travel, which can be a wonderful
way to connect with people,” she
said.
“We,
as a country, have the Peace Corps, but that’s
too much of a commitment for most people. This is a
way someone can do a small chunk and make a connection.
It can be very rewarding on what I call the world
peace front.”
A Closer
Look Travel
can be reached
by calling
360/715-0888 or toll-free
at 877/428-2377. Their
web site is www.acloserlook.travel.com. |
