Khiri Travel launches carbon neutral tour in Sri Lanka

BANGKOK – Khiri Travel Sri Lanka has launched an overland 14-day Sri Lanka luxury wildlife tour which will be verified as carbon neutral. The trip links elephant, leopard, crocodile and bird spotting at four national parks. Following a detailed calculation, Khiri Travel then arranges for the carbon emissions that result from the entire trip to be offset.
 

Carbon emissions on this specific tour are low already. Khiri Travel uses its low-emission hybrid engine cars. Guests stay in green-accredited eco lodges, which have embraced principles of reduce, reuse and recycle. Along the way, guests plant trees.
 

For each trip, specific carbon emissions will be calculated using the award winning carboNZero calculator verified by Enviro-Mark Solutions, which is 100% owned by the New Zealand government. Khiri Travel then purchases the requisite number of carbon credits from a project, such as SNV Netherlands’ Biogas Program that has Gold Standard certified carbon credits. SNV implements a range of green schemes that reduce carbon emissions and greenhouse gasses. Guests can also offset their air transportation to and from Sri Lanka as an add-on.
 

“Guests enjoy a very rich tropical wildlife experience as well as meaningful conversations with tribesmen and villagers who explain the land, nature and the people’s relationship with it,” says Khiri Travel Sri Lanka General Manager, Ruben Derksen.
 

He adds: “The concept of a carbon neutral tour fits perfectly with the values of the local people. Living on an island that is so subject to climate change, they are very aware of the importance of the environment. The fact that in 500 BC Sri Lanka created the world’s first wildlife sanctuary epitomizes that perfectly.“
 

Derksen says that there are many highlights on the trip. He singles out Wilpattu National Park for big cat spotting, staying in a tree house at Thalakotewawa, taking a boat safari at Gal Oya (where elephants swim from island to island on a lake), walking with the chief of the Veddas forest dwellers to see medicinal plants, ancient hunting grounds and former cave dwellings. Another highlight is blue whale spotting from Dondra Head near Galle.
 

Accommodation varies from beach eco cabanas at Negombo on the first night to luxury tented camps, and from a basic tree house to well appointed eco lodges with modern comforts.
 

In Udawalawe National Park, famed for its Sri Lankan elephant population, guests stay at the Banyan Camp Eco Lodge which has mortar floors and walls and was built with bio-degradable materials, harvested timber from sustainable sources, and Palmyra leaf roofs.