BE A RESPONSIBLE TREKKER
 
Order "Dal Bhat".... : Where possible try ordering local food of the season and make your orders similar to that of other trekkers, this will reduce costs and help save the limited local fuel.

Follow the main trail: Rely on the experience of a guide, who knows the trail, this will ensure a safe and timely arrival at your next destination.

Don't buy bottled drinking water: Please take a permanent water bottle and use boiled or treated water.

Respect local dress standards: At a minimum woman should wear a long cloth (chest to knee) and men proper shorts in public, lodges or camp.

Don't trek alone: Avoid getting lost and minimize the risks of trekking alone at high altitudes.

Taking photos: Request permission if you plan to take photos of people. Take care to ensure your footing is safe while taking pictures in the mountains.

Bring proper clothing: Bring adequate clothing and footwear as good weather in the mountains frequently changes to rain and snow with strong winds. Before you leave, check with your guide to ensure that you are properly outfitted.

Carry out your liter: Bring a plastic bag to carry out your liter and dispose of the garbage in designated sites.

Don't encourage begging: Don't give money to the children as it promotes begging.

Don't buy problems: It is prohibited by the Nepal government to buy endangered animal's skin, teeth or body parts.

Respect to the local culture: While you are visiting a temple or monastery please respect the locals and their traditions. In monasteries always walk in a clockwise direction.

Don€™t Cut the plants and tree: Don€™t destroy any plants or tree which will effect to the environment, habitat of wildlife or etc. It took a more than 50 years to be a young tree.

"Don€™t take anything's but photograph don€™t left any things but foot print"
 

Can any one give me some guide line about what are the basic requirements to be a responsible tour operator. As we are few friends who somehow are in tourism industry and we are trying to have a forum concerning a Responsible Tourism. If any one can give some guide line would be appreciable.

Ecotourism was discovered in the 1980's and Ceballos-Lascurain was the first to define the term. He defined Ecotourism as: '"tourism that involves traveling to relatively undisturbed natural areas with the specific object of studying, admiring and enjoying the scenery and its wild plants and animals, as well as any existing cultural aspects (both past and present) found in these areas.'

It€™s a real shame that an industry leader in responsible tourism should move so completely away from offering offsets as this potentially leaves a gaping hole in a wider engagement process and risks driving businesses and consumers away from doing anything at all.

ABTA set up Reduce My Footprint (www.reducemyfootprint.travel) with the aim of giving the travelling public as well as the industry an opportunity to do something around the carbon reduction agenda. In fact we do have a carbon calculator at the core of RMF but it is very much pitched as part of a hierarchy of €˜avoid-reduce-replace-offset€™. We worked with the industry and organisations such as Forum for the Future and Manchester Metropolitan University to put together the RMF scheme.

What we€™ve tried to do is make it clear to consumers and businesses that everything we do in our lives has an impact on the environment €“ washing, heating, lighting, driving, shopping, flying etc. In almost all of these areas there are things we can do here and now to avoid or reduce reliance on fossil fuels and lower our individual emissions (and save money!) And in some areas the opportunities to replace fossil fuel energy reliance with alternatives are increasing all the time.

What we are left with, in particular the flying bit of our travel choices, provides few options to consumers. We certainly don€™t believe that simply encouraging people to pay for absolution is going to change any consumer or company behaviour. But that€™s not what we offer with RMF and not why we offer it. Currently some of the money gŒs into offset projects (certified and verified) but for us the important element is the amount that gŒs into destination projects €“ some of which are about reducing carbon and others are about improving economics and livelihoods. It's this important element of contributing to the kind of destinations they may well go to on holiday that resonates with consumers. So, calculating the carbon and contributing to projects that optimise the benefits our travel decisions bring to destinations and to projects that reduce carbon, should be part of that engagement process. RMF is not perfect, but one thing it certainly isn't is a carbon offsetting scheme.

It is also our responsibility as ABTA to provide all sorts of engagement tools. RMF now sits alongside a number of other initiatives such as Travelife (www.its4travel.com) which is designed to encourage tour operators to make informed decisions about their suppliers (largely hotels at present) and also give suppliers the facts and incentives to perform more efficiently (and carbon reduction is part of that) and also engage more closely with local communities. We have also just launched the results of stage one of Tourism 2023 - our strategic future-proofing work with Forum for the Future. We have developed four plausible scenarios and a shared vision. So far we have ABTA, The Travel Founcation, TUI, Thomas Cook, The Co-operative Travel, Carnival UK, BA, Sunvil and Advantage Travel Centres signed up. The report is at http://www.forumforthefuture.org/projects/tourism-2023

Of course one of the travel industry€™s priorities must be to reduce carbon emissions and we share some of the concerns about offsetting and its role in an increasingly regulated carbon trading environment. But not all the tools in this arena are about paying for guilt. RMF remains a very potent tool for engaging consumers.