Our Responsible and Sustainable Tourism Policies
“Environmentalism without class struggle is gardening”
Soar Excursions is guided by the immortal words of Chico Mendes while defining our sustainable and responsible tourism policies. As tour operators, Soar Excursions believe in being firmly rooted in the communities of Gujarat. And that’s why we strive towards sustainable and responsible tourism.
Our tours offer a unique mix of responsible properties and small-scale homestays to support the local environment and community as well as its culture and traditions. We work with resorts that adopts sustainable practices and prefers organic produce. All the hotels/homestays we work with hire staff and naturalists from nearby villages to generate a steady employment on local level.
When meeting the communities, we encourage interactive sessions, be it on craft form, healthcare, life stories or even their favourite pass times.
On the tours, we request each and every guest to try to be as mindful and eco conscious as possible. We provide a kit on request that consists of eatable cutlery, steel straw as well as clay/steel water bottles.
Being in the field of ecology, wildlife conservation and social justice movements, Soar Excursions runs two different projects in Gujarat.
Niyati works with the women of Mir community in little Rann of Kutch. Traditionally, the women of nomadic Mir community make and wear a lot of beaded ornaments. The skill development project helps them learn contemporary bead work and modern ornaments using their traditional knowledge to make their expertise relevant to the current market demands where they can sell their art.
Aditya is a qualified wildlife biologist working in the field of wildlife and conservation since 2000. He has extensively travelled in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya-Pradesh during his work on critically endangered vultures. Currently he is pursuing his PhD on toxicology of vultures from Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History, Coimbatore. Along with Pavan, a documentary film maker, he runs a vulture awareness program which focuses on creating awareness and building local village level teams that monitor vulture population in central Gujarat. Both of them have made awareness documentaries on Vulture and Sarus Crane conservation.
Articles
A Trip to Kutch Inspired an Engineer to Take Nomadic Tribe’s Ancient Craft to the World
Niyati Kukadia: The engineer taking tribal beadwork jewellery from the Rann of Kutch to the world
Five women entrepreneurs empowering tribal women
Promoting Sustainable development and Ecofriendly Practices
Soar Excursions has always emphasized on sustainable development and ecofriendly tourism practices. Through our sister concern NGO Eklavya Foundation we have been promoting use of ecofriendly and high quality bamboo furniture and other bamboo products in variety of resorts and lodges. These products are manufactured by one of the most vulnerable tribal communities known as the kotwalia, from Dangs forest of south Gujarat.
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