Earth Day: 11 eco champions making our travels better

How to Travel Better is a monthly column with Condé Nast Traveller’s sustainability editor Juliet Kinsman. In this series, Juliet introduces us to the sustainability heroes she meets, signposts the experiences that are enhancing our world, and shares the little and big ways we can all travel better.

My favourite memories from my travels as a sustainability editor come, not from stays at beautiful eco hotels and lodges (although who doesn’t love those), but the unplanned conversations I get to have with purpose-driven, passionate individuals around the world. Meeting Dutch-Malaysian artist Skaii De Vega, for instance, on a sweltering day in Langkawi, as she built beautiful pirate ships from plastic waste with preschoolers; my chats with Roque Sevilla, a former mayor of Quito turned sustainability champion, about the preservation of the páramo, a grassland ecosystem in Ecuador; or bumping along in a 4x4 through Knepp Estate’s rewilded thickets in West Sussex with Ned Burrell, looking out for free-roaming English longhorn cattle.

When it comes to the wellbeing of our planet, there’s so much to consider, and it relies on each of us trying to make a difference – big or small. In an industry dominated by large travel corporations, these 11 Earth Day heroes are leading inspiring grassroots initiatives that are leaving a more positive, equitable, and lasting impact on our planet – and our travels.

The humanitarian protecting Daintree’s flora and fauna

Kristin Canning is helping hospitality hit net zero targets through Rainforest Rescue, her initiative that fights to protect Daintree's delicate ecosystem. Believing that businesses have the power to be significant change-makers, this NGO has been a nature-based solution partner to The Travel Corporation’s Climate Action Plan for over a decade, working towards safeguarding the fragmented lowland rainforest while supporting Indigenous practices and knowledge sharing.

“Lowland habitats are some of the most at-risk areas, as they are prime for agriculture and development, yet are home to precious flora and fauna not found anywhere else,” Canning says. Covering less than 1 per cent of Australia’s surface, Daintree’s rainforests are among its most biodiverse regions, housing 40 per cent of its bird species, 35 per cent of its mammals, and 60 per cent of its butterflies. Despite this, it remains under-protected – and Rainforest Rescue helps fix carbon, improve soil, and stitch habitats back together. “Sustainable, green, and regenerative tourism is going beyond a trend – it’s a movement where people are consciously deciding to give back to the places they choose to visit,” says Canning.

The lodge owner saving mountain gorillas and their habitat in Uganda

Lydia Eva Mpanga is a social worker, lawyer, and safari expert who founded Nkuringo Safaris in 2007 when there were just 880 mountain gorillas left in the world – a species that was headed towards extinction. Today, numbers have increased to more than 1045, and 50 per cent of them reside in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, thanks to the funds raised from gorilla trekking. Today, Nkuringo supports sustainable and community-led gorilla tours and wildlife safaris through its two safari lodges.

Having seen the tangible effects of deforestation on the environment firsthand, Nkuringo Safaris and Nkuringo Bwindi Gorilla Lodge set out to support both environmental and social initiatives that in turn support both tourism – and the gorillas. “Uganda has one of the youngest populations, with almost 60 per cent below the age of 15,” Mpanga tells me. "Feeding its people means forested areas are constantly cleared for agriculture.” Through adjacent programs designed to keep girls in school, and combat early marriages and childbirth, we are reminded of the crossovers between environmentalism, socio-economic reform, and climate solutions.

The Michelin Green Star chef in London taking circular dining to the next level

Chantelle Nicholson is the New Zealand-born chef-founder of Apricity, a fine-dining, forward-thinking restaurant in London's Mayfair that was awarded Michelin’s highest ethical and environmental recognition. Chantelle works tirelessly to incorporate regenerative practices into every aspect of the restaurant's operations from sourcing to production and waste management – collaborating, for instance, with produce supplier Shrub, that sources seasonally and regionally from the best biodynamic farms in South East England.

“In the Western world, it's like we have lost the value of things – whether it is food, goods, or equipment,” says Nicholson. “We work in a throwaway society that does not respect our planet and many of its inhabitants.” The circular-economy dynamo is not only concerned that our world creates so much waste, she’s also proving we can run restaurants more responsibly. “For me, it’s about working in a way where everything is valued and kept in use for as long as possible until there really is no other alternative.” Even the beautiful uniforms at Apricity are fashioned from textiles made from reincarnated PET bottles by Gung Ho, a sustainable British fashion brand.

The captain of industry saving Ecuador’s cloud forest

When Roque Sevilla, the former mayor of Quito, told me about his entrepreneurial journey from setting up an insurance company to saving Ecuador’s forests, I was blown away. A significant percentage of Grupo Futuro's profits goes to its charity wing, Fundación Futuro – and its travel company Metropolitan Touring has been carbon neutral since 2017, thanks to the expansion of its private ecological reserve and tree-planting mission. When visiting its luxury eco-lodge Mashpi Lodge inside Ecuador's Chocó rainforest, I learned that only about 5 per cent of the forest in the Andean Choco bioregion remains.

“Ecuador ranks among the most biodiverse nations on Earth, and protecting that diversity is key for all of our futures,” explains Roque. While at Mashpi, I saw firsthand how they’re helping farmers switch from agriculture to rewilding to create a wildlife corridor totalling 17,000 hectares, and I learned about long-term plans to double the size of the reserve it sits on. “By marrying tourism and conservation, and by creating innovative funding mechanisms for biodiversity protection – while also ensuring sustainable livelihoods for local communities – we hope to counteract the pressures that drive deforestation,” says Sevilla.

The not-for-profit cleaning up Nepal by making sustainable sanitary products

A huge perk of travel is it opens our perspectives to local issues that also play into more widespread global challenges. Anyone who treks through Nepal is likely to notice the significant waste management issue it faces, exacerbated by the pressures of tourism. Tackling this problem of plastic waste through the distinct lens of compostable feminine hygiene products – and supporting women’s empowerment in the process – is Project Sparśa. When founder Dipisha Bhujel realised most menstrual products imported from China and India were 90 per cent plastic, she developed a social business that would produce and sell compostable menstrual pads. Sparśa prioritises local sourcing, creating economic opportunities for communities involved in banana farming, and the production of the pads – made from the byproducts of banana farming – is entirely circular. And with the revenue generated, the organisation runs menstrual awareness campaigns that challenge societal taboos.

The Jordanian community-builder tackling economic leakage in tourism

Muna Haddad’s first project through Baraka Destination, a rural, low-impact tourism venture that she started in 2011, was in Umm Qais, Jordan. “For the first six months, all we did was listen to the locals, learning so much about the place from their perspective, such as there being more than 300 different species of flowers. Through this, we created beekeeping and foraging experiences, nicely connected through a cookery class," recalls Haddad. Today, she works with local communities from the Middle East to the Mediterranean to design enriching travel experiences that give more than they take, collaborating with the World Bank, USAID, and the EU to tackle what she calls the biggest challenge in the world – inequity. “In popular destinations, local communities often receive just the crumbs of tourism benefits because of a lack of capital, market knowledge, or language skills, and this has created a strained relationship between people and the environment,” she explains.

A recent trip to Iceland reminded Haddad of how much we all have in common, no matter where in the world we are. “A Bedouin in the desert of Jordan and an Icelander inhabit totally different terrains, but they are both still reliant on their land.” By partnering with local communities and designing tourism experiences together, Baraka offers travellers a chance to connect with the people that call it home.

The rewilding restaurateur in West Sussex promoting a healthy landscape

I first learned of the Knepp Estate through its founder Isabella Tree’s best-selling book Wilding. Charlie Burrell and Isabella Tree’s 3500-acre rewilding and regenerative farming project has turned marginal lands into a home to a remarkable array of wildlife – everything from red and fallow deer to Exmoor ponies and turtle doves roam free here – and an abundance of flora. When their son Ned Burrell opened The Wilding Kitchen in a restored 18th-century barn with a menu designed for estate-to-plate dining, I couldn’t wait to visit. Burrell believes that the biggest threat to humanity is biodiversity loss: “There’s so much land tied up in producing so little food, but if you reverse that, as Knepp has, the biodiversity benefits are enormous. A recent study showed 95 per cent of the carbon footprint of every ingredient generally comes from its production and manufacturing, whereas our free-roaming pigs, cattle, deer, all are drivers of a healthy landscape,” says Burrell. The Knepp estate also offers sustainability-minded travellers an opportunity to camp and eat on-site and enjoy its walking trails, safaris, and tours.

The filmmaker in Bahamas showing us what we do on land affects the oceans

I first learned about Andre Musgrove, a freediving guide who specialises in photographing humans and marine wildlife, at the last UN Climate Conference. Based in the Bahamas, Musgrove has vast knowledge of its marine wildlife hotspots – and is an ambassador for the ocean non-profit group SeaLegacy. “People are so disconnected from nature and the knowledge that every aspect of our natural world is to our wellbeing,” says Andre. “Through my imagery or private dive guide experiences, I change perspectives by showing them what’s happening underwater. It makes them more aware of the repercussions of our actions on land.”

Andre takes visitors from all over the world on dives so that they can fall in love with the ocean and, in turn, do whatever they can to help protect it. “It can be as simple as encouraging them not to use plastic straws or to use reef-safe sunscreen now that they understand its effects on coral,” he says. “It helps the penny drop that just because a situation is out of sight it shouldn’t mean it’s out of mind. People think the story ends where they can see, but when they put their head underwater, it’s a whole new world they start to care about.”

The Malaysian artist upcycling waste into creative crafts

Skaii De Vega was fashioning waste polystyrene into a starfish destined to become jewellery when I met her at Kanshalife Project’s headquarters in a tiny hidden village in Langkawi. As part of The Datai Langkawi’s outreach program, the Dutch-Malaysian visual artist provides employment to single mothers and marginalised communities by upcycling commercial waste into upscale interior design products sold via the hotel’s elegant gift shop.

Skaii also hosts activities in the resort’s Lab as part of their efforts towards waste reduction and the celebration of small-scale production. “One of the most pressing challenges facing our planet is the pervasive issue of plastic and food pollution, and the relentless use of single-use plastics.” The initiative also engages with the local children of Geng Bersih Kampung to nurture the next generation of green leaders. “Together, we are not just tackling pollution, we are cultivating a generation of change-makers who will shape a brighter, more sustainable future for us all.”

The ecofeminist tackling eco-anxiety through climate cafes in Nigeria

Jennifer Uchendu cares about the mental health of young Africans and wants to make sustainability solutions both actionable and relatable. Through her work with SustyVibes, she works at the intersection of climate change and mental health issues faced by African youth through research, advocacy, and community intervention.

In its co-working space Zen Cafe in Lagos, Uchendu brings young people together with older folk to create intergenerational safe spaces. “Mother Earth is facing many challenges – many of which are intersecting and happening simultaneously,” Jennifer told me from the Netherlands where she has just completed a research fellowship on eco-anxiety at the University of Utrecht. “The concept of the ‘polycrisis’ best describes this phenomenon: ongoing wars, the climate crisis, and the mental health crisis are all harming life on the planet.” SustyVibes’ clean-ups and tree-planting events are open to all to join.

The charity-entrepreneur unlocking water solutions from Bangalore to Mexico

Machiel van Dooren of Made Blue Foundation may be based in the Netherlands, but he’s helping provide access to clean water for communities as far as Asia and the Americas. The World Economic Forum describes the water crisis as our most urgent challenge today, and this entrepreneurial-minded water charity’s mission to provide communities with access to clean drinking water is significant. “It’s hard to imagine what it might be like to walk for four hours a day just to get polluted water and then have to spend ages boiling it. It’s also about opening people’s lives up to do better things.” Since 2014, Made Blue has provided clean water to nearly 140,000 people, totalling over 17 billion litres. Made Blue also partners with hospitality groups such as the Lore Group, and its hotels like Sea Containers London and Pulitzer Amsterdam fund up to 100 litres of clean water per room night sold.

Machiel was also the first to bring it home to me that water scarcity caused by a heating planet exaggerates the gender inequity so much more than many of us realise. “People understand that not everyone has access to clean water – but what we don't think about enough is the disproportionate impact this has on the lives of women and girls, and how much of their time could be freed up for education and generating income.”