In 1989, hundreds of thousands of acres were being added to park systems to conserve ecosystems around the world. International conservation was going into high gear, driven by the rude fact that development was accelerating in the most vulnerable and biodiverse regions of the planet. Conservationists were talking more about preserving the Amazonian rain forest, and less about “saving the panda.”

Help Tourism have been at the vanguard of sustainable tourism initiatives in North East India for well over a decade. They have developed a wide variety of adventure and activity programs, including trekking in the Himalayas, tiger, rhino and bird spotting in the National Parks and Reserves networks, elephant safaris, jungle lodges, heritage and cultural tours in this fascinating and diverse region of India. Uniquely, all these programs are designed with specific sustainable development and conservation goals in mind.

By Ed Thompson, Ooh.com – Whether information gathering, or physically participating, there has never been a time when we’ve been so widely involved in a collective awakening about our impact on the environment. There’s also never been so much fun to be had from it. There are now more courses, classes, tours, and travel opportunities for the eco-conscious than ever. Have you always wanted to get some practical experience with sustainable living? Or considered building your own yurt? We’ll here’s how!

Maldives Whale Shark Research Programme (MWSRP), as its name suggests, study whale sharks in the Republic of Maldives. However, that aspect of their work is merely the tip of the ice berg. The programme was created in 2006, when four British university graduates set off to the 1192-island archipelago on a pilot study in search of the whale shark, after learning from the dive industry (already well established in the Maldives) that there were a substantial number of whale sharks throughout the country but not one person was studying them.

The Jalore Wildlife Sanctuary, established in 2005 in a remote jungle area of granite hills, savanna and forest, is the first and only privately owned and operated wildlife sanctuary in India. The sanctuary’s mission is to balance the needs of locals and wildlife by combining conservation and ecotourism. The idea to create a new wildlife refuge in Jalore was first born out of discussions among a group of friends and family – Gajendra Singh Chouhan, a patron of the arts from Jodhpur, and his friends

Inkaterra develops and implements, through the NGO Inkaterra Association, various projects to help preserve the local environment and manage economic development in a sustainable manner. These projects take place at the bank of Madre de Dios River in the rainforest – where Inkaterra Reserva Amazonica lodge is located – and at the Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel, in the Machu Picchu cloud forest.

Historically residents of Mangalajodi village posed a threat to bird life. Many families turned the lucrative poaching trade and it wasn’t long before bird numbers hit an all-time low. A local conservation organization Wild Orissa meet with the villagers a decade ago and has been instrumental in guiding their transformation ever since. Poachers developed an intricate knowledge of bird habitats, breeding cycles and migration patterns. The challenge was to utilise this knowledge and their existing skill-set for conservation.

Boasting a species list of over 1,800, including over 120 endemic species, Peru either is or should be on anybody’s destination list who is even vaguely interested in birds. From coastal deserts to high Andes mountains, to the cloud forest, to the extensive lowland Amazon that covers 60% of the country, the range of habitats is immense. Each ecozone in Peru is home to unique birds, and nowhere are the numbers of birds greater than in the lowland Amazon rainforests.

The Manu National Park is one of the most pristine natural areas in the world with extraordinary biodiversity. The park’s over 1,700,000 hectors, between 492 and 13,779 ft in altitude, of amazing natural environments range from Andean grasslands to cloud forests to foothill and lowland forests. The park is home to an unrivalled variety of animal and plant species, with over 1,000 species of birds and 200 species of mammals, including endangered species such as the harpy eagle, jaguar, and giant river otters.

By Mikael Castro, TIES Travel Ambassador – “Welcome to the Capital of Ecotourism” read the sign at the entrance of town Bonito, in Brazil’s state of Mato Grosso do Sul. A rather ambitions statement, I thought, confident I would find only a few great ecotourism establishments among a pool of green-washed want-to-be’s. I was pleasantly surprised, however, to find an amazingly organized, conservation-driven, municipal-wide, policy-driven, multi-stakeholder system for ecotourism.