World Environment Day: Hotels Which Make a Difference
This year's theme for the World Environment Day is 'Beat Plastics Pollution'. This theme reflects the growing concern over the negative impact of plastic on our environment and its inhabitants. The United Nations aims to raise awareness and encourage proactive measures to reduce the use and disposal of plastic. Plastic pollution poses significant risks to global ecosystems, wildlife, and human health, and this year's theme calls for collective action from individuals, governments, and industry leaders to work together towards creating a more sustainable world. As a globally-recognized day, World Environment Day offers an ideal opportunity to highlight the vital role of environmental protection and underscores the need for action from all.
Here are our top picks of hotels that offer innovative ways to protect their beautiful natural surroundings - and engage guests too.
InterContinental Maldives Maamunagau Resort
In collaboration with The Manta Trust, the InterContinental Maldives Maamunagau Resort is driving conservation initiatives for manta rays in the Maldives. InterContinental Maldives is located on an island that is incredibly close to a recently found juvenile manta feeding area, the Maamunagau Lagoon, on the picturesque Southernmost tip of the Raa Atoll, on the verge of a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve, and inside its own natural lagoon. The Manta Trust crew has the chance to learn more about these gentle giants, their native habitats, and migration patterns, thanks to the lagoon's provision of a safe haven and home to a sizable and healthy population (all without ever interfering).
In addition to being a dedicated manta ray sanctuary and feeding station managed in partnership with the Manta Trust and Ocean Group to foster a secure environment and accomplish worldwide conservation for these endangered animals, Hanifaru Bay is also a resort's excellent location. The Manta Trust crew resides on-site, and InterContinental Maldives safeguards the natural habitats of these species while also providing educational seminars and research snorkelling excursions for visitors, as well as organising donation and adoption programmes for The Manta Trust. The resort also regularly offers "Manta Retreats" where visitors may experience life as a marine scientist during the optimum time of the year for swimming with young mantas. Dates for the next retreat have already been booked for March 2024. Tracking mantras, evening presentations about their natural surroundings and the value of plankton, rebuilding coral, and certified divers may see the natural manta'spa' are just a few of the activities planned to ensure that visitors learn and appreciate the ocean's most captivating creatures.
Windjammer Landing, Saint Lucia
The Perry Institute for Marine Research and Eastern Caribbean Diving, the resort's on-site scuba diving crew, have partnered with Windjammer Landing, Saint Lucia, to provide a number of diving trips. Located in the Caribbean, the non-profit Perry Institute for Marine Science promotes a wide range of research and teaching initiatives that assist ocean conservation. In order to support The Perry Institute's work in ecosystem and restoration research, Windjammer Landing has developed two diving packages that guarantee The Perry Institute will get 10% of every course reservation. In addition to making a financial contribution, The Perry Institute created a specially designed environmental diving package, available only to the resort, to pique the interest of young divers in marine conservation and the significance of coral regeneration and rejuvenation. Three days of diving are included in the programme (a total of six dives along with the PADI Reef Rescue Diver Certification), and the activities include diving at coral mitigation sites, getting practical experience running a coral nursery, and out-planting corals that were raised in the nursery.
Divers will gain practical experience running a coral nursery as part of a carefully crafted environmental package that has been created for marine conservation and to pique divers' interest in coral repair and rejuvenation. A customizable technique to teach young children about the value of marine life has also been developed in the form of a family package. On St. Lucia's northwest coast, Windjammer Landing is a picture-perfect diving location situated on 65 acres of lush hillside. offering unmatched views of the surrounding tropical nature and unique access to 64,000 square feet of fine, white sand.
Lepogo Lodges’ Noka Camp
One of the only wholly nonprofit safari lodges in Africa, Lepogo Lodges' Noka Camp has furthered its already impressive eco-credentials by collaborating with national and international nonprofit organisations to fully offset its visitors' carbon impact. The first luxury lodge in Africa to calculate the carbon emissions caused by each guest's journey from the time they leave their home to the time they return, Lepogo Lodges is family-run and completely energy self-sufficient thanks to the property's own solar walkway. This figure is then converted into a monetary value, which is then donated by Lepogo Lodges to one of three conservation projects, chosen by the guest.
The initiatives include 'A Community Stove Outreach Project', a partnership with the outreach programme of the nearby Lapalala Wilderness School, wherein high-efficiency stoves are given to the neighbourhood. Each home uses 2.5 tonnes less wood annually thanks to the new stoves. This not only increases the number of trees saved and reduces emissions by burning less wood, but it also improves family health and cuts down on the amount of time spent cooking. Through The South African Reforestation Trust, a non-profit organisation and platform that connects landowners, institutions, businesses, and individuals together to establish and extend indigenous forest ecosystems, the second initiative is a "Biodiversity Enhancement Project." The third project, "Stand for Trees," is a global initiative. Its 16 conservation initiatives seek to safeguard some of the world's most breathtaking forest environments, as well as the nearby communities and wildlife that calls them home.
Offering visitors a variety of venues to select from, the projects are spread out over Northern Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Peru, Brazil, and more. Together with the carbon offset programme, Lepogo Lodges is dedicated to assisting local communities by assisting them in the establishment of companies that provide goods for the lodge and on-site gift store. Lepogo Lodges is dedicated to protecting wildlife, and as such, it is supporting research and collaborating with Lapalala to develop the reserve as a centre of excellence for the release of wild cheetahs as well as additional conservation of the "Magnificent Seven."