Churchill polar bear watching tour

Planet

CARBON REDUCTION

Sustainable Aviation Fuel Investment:
Your booking contributes to investments in Sustainable Aviation Fuel and Tomorrow's Air's carbon removal technologies, including direct air capture and biochar, which are developing solutions to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

ENVIRONMENT AND WILDLIFE

Responsible wildlife viewing:
Tthis is one of the most important aspects to what we do. In fact, we truly helped WWF ‘write the book’ on responsible arctic wildlife viewing practices. This takes into account minimum distances, numbers of vehicles, of course no interaction or baiting, other impacts (like emissions, waste disposal, etc.) and essentially doing no harm. Viewing behaviours that could look benign can actually be bad if it ‘pushes’ the bears to expend energy at a time of year when they are trying to conserve energy during this ‘walking hibernation.’ To ensure this happens, we have extensive training programs, are part of many ‘polar bear working groups’ and our guides are often the ones literally doing the research on these things when not guiding for us. So, we take it seriously and walk the walk.

The economics of ecotourism is perhaps the most powerful way to save wildlife in this context. When you add value to wildlife because of the economics of ecotourism, you create stakeholders and you show that wildlife is worth more alive than dead (same thing with habitat…habitat is worth more intact vs. degraded) because of the tourism dollars left in local economies. Thus, this is a core reason we do what we do, because it positively influences more people, sustainably, while further incentivizing wildlife conservation through this value-adding mechanism.

Plastic-Free Operations: Travellers receive reusable stainless steel water bottles and insulated mugs as part of the company's elimination of single-use plastics, building on their 2019 World's First Zero Waste Adventure programme.

WWF Conservation Partnership:
The trip operates through a partnership established in 2003 that has provided over $9 million for global conservation projects, with travellers contributing an additional $40 million to WWF priorities in the destinations they visit.

People

LOCAL ECONOMY

In our initial study on local impact, over 90% of money paid to our partners stays local, in-country, further underlining the power of conservation travel. The value chain is slightly esoteric, but it just goes to show you the incredible variety of entities that are involved in the average adventure…when we talk about leaving money in local economies, it’s not just the guides, and the hotels, it’s like 75 other core entities.

Finally, I’m happy to say that of the dozens and dozens of people involved in our polar bear programs, we’re at a rather even split of male and female, perhaps a bit more female, and nearly all are local Canadians, and quite a few indigenous and born in Churchill and the arctic region. Depending on the value chain that I mentioned above, this ultimate number of partners, or people employed due to these trips could be viewed as 30 or 300, depending on how far down the value chain you want to go, but hiring local, and indigenous when possible, is always preferred and something we do a really great job on. Not just because it’s topical these days, but because it’s key to creating the stakeholders, supporting local communities, and does the best job at saving wild areas and wildlife while taking care of the people that are so core in protecting it (and they’re our friends, too ??).

EMPLOYMENT, INCLUSIVITY AND DIVERSITY

Employment, Inclusivity & Diversity:
Local Guide Development: The experience prioritises working with local and indigenous guides who receive training and support to build sustainable careers in conservation tourism, ensuring communities benefit directly from visitor experiences.

Industry Access Initiatives:
Your participation helps fund efforts to diversify the travel workforce through partnerships, recruitment programmes, and workplace initiatives designed to create opportunities for individuals from historically underrepresented communities in adventure travel careers.