Global Basecamps, in collaboration with Maasai Wanderings, contributes to a variety of ecotourism and community outreach programs in Tanzania. In 2004, Maasai Wanderings visited a Maasai village called Ilkurot (which means “dusty place”) just north of Arusha, and saw that the schools were in desperate need of supplies and repairs, and there was no nursery school.

I lead the Tiger Trail team in Luang Prabang, Laos. I always had a passion for adventure and travelling but, even more important, for other people. I also believe that the world is not fairly developed and even its most beautiful landscapes can be the stage for poverty and degradation. I aim to approach these problems by seeking a better way: Through our Fair Trek in Laos projects, I combine community work with tourism and bring people together from all over the world to work with Lao communities.

Any far-reaching initiative that promotes tolerance, interfaith harmony and shared opportunity really stands out, especially in the world of travel. Such is the case with The Region Initiative, a broad-based, tri-regional responsible-tourism partnership founded in May 2010 and spanning South Asia, Central Asia and Eastern Europe with the goal of connecting communities along the ancient Silk Road.

In Vietnam, Bloom Microventures combines tourism with microfinance in an extremely innovative manner: Bloom’s unique model of cross-subsidising microfinance operations with income generated through tourism enables the organisation to have a far greater social impact. By meeting the borrowers on a tour, we see clearly just how very successful Bloom’s program has been in lifting some of the poorest women in Vietnam out of poverty.

Projects in Kenya, Peru, Sri Lanka and Brazil have been announced as the winners of the first travel2change idea challenge. Over 500 members joined the travel2change online community since its launch in late April 2011, and submitted around 60 innovative project proposals. The submitted ideas were evaluated based on creativity, effectiveness, impact, feasibility and sustainability.

No fewer than 1.6 billion people — nearly a quarter of the world’s population — depend on forests for their livelihoods. Forests are also critical to maintaining biodiversity, mitigating climate change and enabling key ecosystem functions that regulate the biosphere. And yet about 45 per cent of the world’s forests have already been cleared. Here are some hard numbers to ponder that tell us how and why we should stop.

Mole National Park, Ghana’s largest protected ecosystem, is surrounded by nearly 30 indigenous rural communities that rely on the land for their livelihood. Addressing these fringe communities’ livelihood concerns is an important part of the work done in the area by one tour company, M&J Travel and Tours, committed to ecotourism in Ghana. It currently works with more than 350 women to support the local shea-butter production efforts for commercial trade.