Patagonia wildlife vacation

Planet

Our environmental impact in our offices is low, so we focus more on the value chain. Anyway, in the office, we do waste separation and always try to reduce and reuse whenever possible.

Selection of our suppliers:
In order to ensure sustainability and consistency with our work philosophy, we always look for sustainable tourism providers that meet any of the following requirements:

- Be distinguished by quality and / or sustainability programs/seals
- Be recognized locally for their good environmental and social practices.
- We prioritize local ventures and, if possible, attended by their owners.
- In the case of accommodation, we work with hotels certified for their environmental management whenever we can.
- We also encourage our allies to improve and continue implementing environmentally responsible practices, especially those related to water, energy, and waste.
- In the more traditional destinations, we seek to offer a different travel experience, with small group excursions, certified local guides and with alternative proposals that complement the most tourist sites.

Responsible practices with the environment:
- Walking and public transport tours
- Visit natural areas where we work on environmental awareness and the importance of biodiversity.
- We deliver a recycled leather envelope to our customers to carry their documentation. The Vacavaliente company is a certified B company that buys the remains of leather from tanneries (preventing them from being waste) and transforms them into design products through reuse techniques.
- As part of our paperless policy, we stopped printing long road books and change it for digital brochures for our clients.

At Mater we always search for alternative activities to those usually chosen by large groups of tourists so that you can have more intimate and authentic experiences, without missing out on the most emblematic places in Argentina.

This tour includes small-group excursions so that you can get a better experience. You’ll visit the most outstanding places in Argentinian Atlantic Patagonia: Península Valdés, and Bahia Bustamante, along with guides specialized in nature. You’ll go to unconventional places where you’ll get an authentic encounter with the local peoples.

One of the main characteristics of sustainable tourism is the direct and genuine bond created with locals, generating a reciprocal cultural enrichment. In Puerto Madryn you’ll see southern right whales, a natural spectacle, and participate in a group excursion to Península Valdés, a natural reserve where you’ll get to observe the richness of the region and respectfully watch some characteristic Patagonian animals, such as sea lions.

You will also visit a local Estancia, where you will see penguins.

Each activity aims at reaching a higher knowledge about the region’s biodiversity with help from specialist guides and under strict conditions of environmental care.

You will then reach Bahia Bustamante, a natural private reserve located on the Atlantic coast and that is recognized by its relevant biological biodiversity. This family-run ecolodge has the main objective, which is to protect this piece of paradise & share this incredible nature with guests from all over the world, aiming to promote environmental conservation & raise awareness on the protection of this fragile ecosystem.

People

In our trips, we hire local certified guides who know their environments best. We include visits to local communities and estancias. These are off the road places, where the tourists do not frequently go and so our support is crucial to them. We support them not only by hiring their services, but also by creating cultural exchange, having lunch for example, or buying them provisions.

We also recommend our travelers to visit social projects, for example, some of our clients have visited a soup-kitchen located in a rural area that also offers training to the children: organic farming, local food preparation, harvest, farm, etc.

Some of the accommodation is in family houses (private rooms), which allows a more meaningful cultural exchange, while we support the local development.

We collaborate with the local development of that region through tourism revenues. In addition, we raise awareness about the importance of cultural and natural heritage as different sites are visited, including some protected by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites.

It is important to mention that in the rural community tourism programs, in addition to the genuine income generated for the families, there are other positive impacts such as the enhancement of their cultural and natural heritage, the revalue of their customs and identity and something extremely important: young people do not migrate from the countryside to the city, as they find in tourism an opportunity to stay in their places and work.