Assam, Manipur and Nagaland Hornbill Festival, India

Planet

We try to embed an authentic wildlife experience into each and every trip, and this one is no different. Because Assam and Nagaland enjoy a less-degraded natural environment relative to others, it's important for us to tailor tours that try to better ecological conditions through moral and financial support. This tour takes in Loktak lake, a haven for wetland birds. Our presence there helps encourage its preservation, minimising the risk of pollutants and human development. A centerpiece of this tour is Kasiranga N.P. By promoting the national park, a sanctuary for Asian one-horned rhino, we act in its defence. Running small group travel, we ensure our ecological footprint is manageable.
By making this tour primarily an expedition into tribal lands, we strive to conserve the delicate equilibrium of tribal society and nature. Our presence helps empower local stakeholders to maintain their high environmental standards, and to push for every greater natural protections by limiting outside influence.
Wherever possible, we also use locally, responsibly-sourced rural lodges and home stays whose very raison d'être is to safeguard and even enhance the natural habitat surrounding them, both for their own sake and that of nature.

People

We firmly believe that they are who make these places special and that they should benefit from our visit. Therefore, where ever possible we use local guides and locally-owned lodges, such as that in Mon, shops and eateries. We do our best to ensure that the benefits of our tours reach as widely as possible into the communities where they operate. We also support a small portfolio of charities and local grassroots organisations. In Nagaland, we send small client groups into Konyak Naga tribal lands to spend quality time with villagers. There no only cultural osmosis can happen, the tribal society can equip themselves better financially to keep funds flowing back into the local community at the granular level. Similarly, we follow this model with the Mising Tribe of Assam.

We support the community in Nagaland by contributing to WaterAid and taking you into the tribal heartland of India. For every booking we receive we make a token contribution to this notable cause. Over 1.2 billion people call India home and this vast population is spread across deserts and deltas, green valleys and rocky mountains, remote villages and mega-cities. Reaching everyone with clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene is a huge challenge.

WaterAid helped 1,171,000 people obtain toilets and 603,000 people get clean water In India. The Indian Government’s ‘Clean India’ campaign has a target of no-one going to the toilet in the open by the end of 2019, this is front page news and change is slowly happening. Nearly half the population currently have no choice but to go outside; in rivers and fields, beside train tracks and in alleyways. Every day, at least 166 children under five die because of diarrhoea caused by dirty water and poor sanitation. It is particularly tough to get toilets and water to people living in India’s rapidly expanding slums - we believe that the community should benefit from tourism, so we do our part with every tourist we send.