As conservation tourism becomes more and more popular, how can travelers be certain where and how their money is being spent? One well-known wildlife conservation tourism project, called SEE Turtles, is clearly outlining exactly how travelers’ dollars contribute to the sustainability of conservation projects and surrounding communities.

Since the very first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, over 20 million Americans from all walks of life have contributed to major environmental accomplishments. For 2012, the Earth Day Network is again hosting “A Billion Acts of Green®” with the ambitious goal of registering another one billion environmentally friendly actions.

In honour of Earth Day – scheduled this year for Sunday April 22 – and our focus this month on ecotourism, we’re thinking about our planet. We’re thinking about the human activities that have the most harmful impact on it, especially the one we love most – travel. We’re compelled to ask: What is tourism in its worst form, environmentally? Even in its best form, can the cost to the earth of tourism ever really be offset?

Vast areas were destroyed by a fire that forced the closure of Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park between December 29, 2011, and January 4, 2012, and caused permanent environmental damage in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Unfortunately, it was not the first time that a fire has started as a result of a tourist’s irresponsible conduct.

“Load up quick, bad weather, come very quick!” These are the last words you ever want to hear when you are a passenger in a tiny 20-seater plane flying into the rainforest. As the engines whirred into life, I wondered for a split second whether or not I’d bought enough supplies to last a trek to the nearest village should the plane crash. Risky or not, the flight into the interior of Sarawak only served to highlight the nature of the trip that was to come – remote and, at this point, reckless.

Turkey boasts a dynamic mix of cultural influences and unique range of natural landscapes, both in great need of protection. In keeping with that, Unlimited Holidays, a young tour operator based in Kalkan, in the southern Mediterranean region of Turkey, has signed on as a local partner of the Green Path Transfers global network of local eco-friendly airport transfer partners and ground transportation operators.

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.

The One Day on Earth project began in 2008, with the vision of uniting the entire world in a single film-related project. The potential for collaboration offered by the internet is something that continues to be explored to this day, but the group behind One Day on Earth set out to achieve something that had never been seen before: a collection of moments, experiences and events from all corners of the globe with a single unifying experience – they all took place on the same day.

Fellow travellers, I have a weakness: I like to shop. Worse, when I travel, my addiction takes over. My Achilles heel is for local souvenirs, the more creative and original, the better. Among my finer purchases is a gorgeous green silk scarf bought in Vietnam, an unusual hand-carved mask from Belize that now hangs on my wall and a pair of small but colourful paintings I picked up in Peru.