The sense of freedom and the boundless horizons that travelers encounter in the desert can make them feel anything can be done there, without consequences for the environment. However, the sparseness of the plant cover, the scarcity of natural resources, and the lack of humidity (an accelerator of biodegradability) in fact make these environments highly sensitive to human passage.
As tour operators, we probably have the largest interest in preserving the pristine beauty of this unique environment on which our business depends. We pride ourselves on our ecological awareness and our own conservation efforts as we believe that our resources are precious and must be safeguarded for future generations. That’s why we strongly advocate responsible and sustainable tourism.
This means:
- Not leaving any garbage anywhere (even buried under the sand where the wind manages to uncover everything), be they made of plastic, metal or even paper,
- keeping in mind that as water is very scarce, decomposition processes are very slow,
- encouraging visitors to burn toilet paper with a lighter,
- respecting the places we visit when other people are already on the spot, being quiet and friendly,
- remembering that nature has sometimes needed millions of years to give birth to the wonders we see.
If you would like to learn more about sustainable tourism in the desert, you might be interested in the United Nations Environment Program’s “Tourism and Deserts: A Practical Guide to Managing the Social and Environmental Impacts in the Desert Recreation Sector”.