By Melanie Jae Martin

If you want to see great apes in the wild, Sumatra’s rainforest is one of the most accessible places to do just that. However, you need to know how to visit them responsibly or you could introduce illnesses, since they share over 97 percent of our DNA. Less than 7,000 Sumatran orangutans live in the wild, and they’re an essential part of the rainforest ecosystem, helping seeds to germinate and even pruning the canopy.

Something not to be missed during your visit to South Carolina is Beaufort Kayak Tours’ Hunting Island trip, where you can learn about salt marsh organisms and their lifestyle, paddle through the beautiful palm-tree studded lagoon where movies such as “Forest Gump” were filmed, take an interpretive beach walk to learn about ocean creatures and barrier island geology, and perhaps even have a swim in the inlet. If you’re attending the ESTC this September, you can join one of the special post-conference tours offered by Beaufort Kayak Tours.

Loggerheads are the most commonly found sea turtles that nest in the southeastern United States, and, in 1988, were deemed the official state reptile of South Carolina. They can be found in South Carolina’s near shore waters between April and November or nesting on the beaches between May and October. These enormous reptiles take 25 to 30 years to mature and reproduce. Consequently, sea turtle conservation is critical in areas where commercial fishing, pollution, and beachfront development pose a threat to their natural habitat.

By Ali Zerriffi

Barra De Potosi is a small coastal village at the mouth of a lagoon which runs along the coast of the Municipio de Petatlan. The lagoon network regulates the lives of both human and animal lives and has a balanced ecosystem that has kept its people employed and its environment protected. The people of Barra de Potosi are now confronted by a development project that they believe will destroy the existing ecosystem, in spite of Mexican laws protecting the environment.

By Hannah Wood

The site is officially named Udzungwa Forest Tented Camp, but the locals call it Hondo Hondo which translates to “hornbill” in Swahili; the camp is a favoured nesting spot for these birds. Due to the high biodiversity and fascinating ecological features of the park, we proved popular with school and university trips. Soon the camp was full of students from Germany, the UK, Uganda and Tanzania, to name a few.

Over the millennia, the Fish River, the longest river in Namibia, has slowly but surely etched through a dry desert landscape to define the largest canyon in Africa (and second largest in the world) – the Fish River Canyon. Although booking canyon access can be tricky – numbers are restricted and the season is short – trekkers (principally local Namibians and South Africans) do tackle the steeply inclined paths that cut through Gondwana Cañon Park and plunge into the 550-metre gorge.

Katrina from Alaska Ultra Sport introduces us to the wild wonders of the Alaskan wilderness, and exposes the numerous threats to these areas from mining. Perhaps a good adventure can help save the day?

“When I first came to Alaska in 1996 I fell in love with this huge wild place. I moved to Alaska permanently from Germany in 2002 and have since guided people from all over the world into Alaska’s vast wilderness on multi-day hiking, rafting and kayaking trips.

The rhinoceros is critically endangered! Approximately 200 years ago, at the turn of the 19th century, there were an estimated one million rhinos. By 1970, the count was about 70,000. Today, there are fewer than 24,000 remaining in the wild. If there is no change in our appreciation of this magnificent animal – if we do not take action to stop poaching and support the protection of our rhinos – the five surviving species (white rhino, black rhino, Indian rhino, Sumatran rhino and Javan rhino) will become extinct in the wild in our lifetime.

SEEtheWILD offers meaningful adventure vacations that help protect endangered species across the globe. After three years of successful conservation tourism projects focused on protecting sea turtles through SEETurtles.org, Dr. Wallace J. Nichols and Brad Nahill formed SEEtheWILD to support a wider variety of destinations and endangered species. Since 2008, SEE Turtles has generated more than $200,000 for local turtle conservation programs in Costa Rica, Baja Mexico and Trinidad.

Climate and travel are inherently linked. Climate affects our decisions about where to travel, and lately we’ve learned that the emissions of our travel (and our human activity in general) are affecting the climate. Climate change will change travel, and new winners and losers will emerge. For the past five years, headlines have claimed that climate change is actually popularizing certain at-risk destinations. Travelers want to get there before it’s too late. “Last chance tourism,” as academia has agreed to call it, is on the rise.