Walk

If you aren’t pressed for time, the most eco-friendly way to explore a city is to walk. Walking tours are often more affordable than other guided tours because there is less overhead. Not only is walking free, it can also help you experience a place at ground-level in a way that buses, cabs, or trains can’t. As an added bonus, it’s also good for your health. Making a conscious effort to walk or hike while on vacation is a great way to keep fit while on vacation.

Bike

Although flying and driving may be fast and convenient ways of getting around, both are expensive and contribute to air pollution. To reduce your carbon footprint and stretch your budget, consider going on a bike tour of instead of a tour bus. Bike tours can be a fun way to meet other travelers and get exercise on your trip. Renting a bike – or buying one for longer stays – is also an option if you’d like to discover a destination at your own pace or are need a way to get around faster than walking.

Use Public Transportation

Taking public transportation instead of hopping in a taxi or renting a car may require a bit more planning, but trams, subways and other modes of mass transport are much more energy efficient and more affordable ways to get around. Public transportation is also a great way to interact with people who live in the area and to experience places off the beaten path. It can also be a goal in itself. For example, British expat Daniel Tunnard is filming a documentary and writing about riding every city bus in Buenos Aires, while Australian writer and teacher Peter Davies has launched a project to ride every metro line and explore the area around every station in Mexico City.

Lodging

Although eco-lodges are becoming more popular and increasingly more affordable, you can also try to conserve energy at hostels and budget hotels with sustainable practices. Wear multiple layers instead of turning up the thermostat, set a timer for your shower time and ask the owner not to deliver a newspaper to your door. Even if these measures won’t save you money off your bill per night, at least you can find ways to conserve energy without splurging on an eco-lodge if it doesn’t fit into your budget. Camping is also an option if you enjoy hiking and have room to pack supplies. Many hostels will even let you camp on their grounds at cheaper rates than they charge for their rooms.

Food

Much of the food packaging on airplanes, trains and long-distance buses is not recyclable, so if you have the choice of paying for a meal in transit or bringing your own pack granola, cereal, trail mix and even fruits and veggies in a reusable container to save money and spare the landfills. Also, patronize local markets whenever possible. It’s often cheaper to cook your own food from scratch than eating out, and you’ll get the chance to experiment with native produce or spices that haven’t been shipped in.

Water

Bring your own water bottle instead of paying for bottled water everywhere you go, and ask to refill the bottle at casual restaurants instead of using paper cups. If you plan to travel to a country where tap water isn’t always safe to drink, consider investing in a water bottle with a built in purifier or filter that you can reuse multiple times before replacing. You’ll save money on bottled water, which carries a hefty 4,000% markup.

It isn’t difficult to stick to a budget when you’re committed to eco-friendly travel; in fact, if you choose to be environmentally conscious while traveling, you may be surprised at how easy it is to save money.

Tom Lalampaa

As it turned out, his brother’s choice wound up changing not only Tom’s life but also that of the Samburu community and the land they call home. As community development manager for the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT), Tom is now a key player in efforts to protect Kenyan wildlife and improve the lives of his people and others who inhabit this beautiful but often unforgiving place.

The savannas of northern Kenya abound with wildlife, including several endangered species, notably the Grevy’s zebra (only about 2,500 individuals remain in the wild, the majority of them in Kenya) and the Hirola antelope (whose wild population is probably no more than 400 animals, making it Africa’s most endangered antelope). Yet problems have been widespread: poaching of elephants for ivory, the killing of a variety of species for bush meat and cultural reasons (wearing lions skins is a key part of traditional ceremonies), and general environmental degradation from human use and migration. Add to that a porous border with the Sudan to the north and a high level of conflict and mistrust between different ethnic groups in the area, and you have a region where conservation challenges have long outweighed successes.

Since 2004, however, all that has been changing. That’s when the nonprofit Lewa Wildlife Conservancy joined with representatives from the Kenyan government and local stakeholders including private and community conservation initiatives to create the Northern Rangelands Trust. Formed to coordinate previously fragmented conservation efforts and promote cooperation rather than conflict between different ethnic groups, the NRT is “a home-grown institution aimed at addressing home-grown problems and creating long-lasting local solutions,” according to its website. It unites different interest groups “with a goal of collectively developing strong community-led institutions as a foundation for investment in community development and wildlife conservation.”

Hirola antelopes, photo courtesy of Northern Rangelands Trust

The NRT links conservation and development through community conservancies, which are community-led initiatives that work to meet conservation goals in ways that also benefit local residents. Conservancies engage communities in conservation efforts and natural resource management while simultaneously developing wildlife-based sources of income.

Since the establishment of the NRT, “security in northern Kenya has greatly improved,” Tom Lalampaa says. “Security for people, and security for wildlife.” Local conservation staff are now equipped with VHF radios, enabling them to report violations or other problems quickly. Increased communication between ethnic groups has greatly reduced intertribal conflicts. “Eight different ethnic groups are getting to work together, plan together, and to trust each other,” Tom explains.

On the conservation front, NRT successes have included improved grassland management (benefitting both wildlife and livestock) and an intensive aerial survey of the Hirola antelope population (efforts are now underway to secure funding to develop a predator-proof sanctuary to safeguard a breeding population of the species). The organization was also instrumental in the recent reintroduction of the endangered Rothschild’s giraffe to areas where it had not been seen for 40 years – an effort that involved a dramatic and complicated transfer of eight giraffes on a barge across Lake Baringo to a community-owned wildlife sanctuary on the opposite shore.

Transferring giraffes across Lake Baringo, photo courtesy of Northern Rangelands Trust

In the past, conflict has kept most tourists away from northern Kenya, but now visitor numbers are increasing. Six community-run lodges provide revenue for community development, and other tourism-related enterprises are taking root. Many local women have received microloans to establish businesses making and selling handicrafts. Traditionally wealth was concentrated in the hand of the men, but now, Tom says, “the dynamics are really changing. Women are getting their own resources, their own voice.”

Other community development initiatives have included cutting out middlemen in order to enable locals to command higher prices for their cattle, and building a water pipeline to save women from having to walk for hours every day to fetch water. Educational opportunities have also increased: In 1990, Tom was the only person from his village to go to university; now there are 43 students from the community pursuing higher education.

“When I look back to where we were some time ago in the community to where we are now, it’s amazing,” Tom reflects. “People are now seeing wildlife as a resource and taking responsibility for their lands. There is dialogue where there was conflict.”

A recent study of NRT conducted for The Nature Conservancy by researchers at the University of Southampton supports these claims. The researchers found that “[c]ommunity conservation has significantly enhanced both livelihoods and habitat condition in northern Kenya” and concluded that “community conservancies may provide a framework for integrating conservation and development at the local scale.”

The NRT currently supports 18 community conservancies that protect 2.4 million acres (971,000 hectares) of land, with more communities clamoring to join. Ultimately, Tom dreams of having 10 million acres of land in conservation. It’s a big goal, but he is undaunted: “I look at my past, I look at where I am, and I look at where I’m going, and I think the future is bright.”

*****

Note: This story originally appeared on ET News Editor Annika Hipple’s blog.

Air travel accounts for three percent of global carbon emissions, which may seem like a minor offense in the spectrum of environmental transgressions. However, according to the Christian Science Monitor, air travel is steadily increasing at five percent every year, and the number of aircraft alone will likely double in the next 10 years. With the current alarming rates of fossil fuel consumption, air travel could quickly become a serious threat to global warming and air quality.

So, aside from staying home, what is the environmentally conscious traveler to do? Although no easy solution is in sight, the aviation industry and government agencies have been testing and implementing several ways to make air travel more sustainable.

Carbon Offset Programs
Delta, Continental and JetBlue currently offer carbon calculators to help interested travelers offset carbon emissions from their trip. These tools are then linked to a voluntary contribution system, where users can donate funds toward planting trees or other eco-friendly projects. The major problem with this solution is that the programs are entirely voluntary. If carbon offset programs are truly to neutralize air travel’s carbon footprint, full participation is necessary.

Biofuel
Some airlines are looking at alternatives to petroleum. Alaska Airlines, for example, introduced a limited number of alternative-fuel flights in November. The airline estimates the total carbon-emissions savings on its 75 trial flights to be “the equivalent of taking 26 cars off the road for a year,” the Seattle Times reports. Biofuels emit just as much carbon dioxide as standard jet fuel, but the biofuel itself is from a renewable source; however, it is six times more expensive than standard fuel. United and Virgin Airlines have also conducted biofuel trials, with similar results.

Carbon Permits
Implementing sustainable practices may no longer be a matter of choice for airlines that frequent certain regions. On December 21, the European Court of Justice approved a proposal to make airlines that take off or land on European Union soil pay for 15 percent of their carbon emissions. According to the Washington Post, EU officials argue that the measure is necessary because emissions from airlines have doubled in the past decade and are expected to triple in the next 10 years. The new carbon permit policy, which went into effect on January 1, 2012, may head to the United Kingdom’s High Court this month, since the industry trade group Airlines for America has already filed suit, claiming violations of state sovereignty.

If voluntary carbon offset programs don’t cover the full effects of environmental damage, and biofuel is expensive, are state-enforced carbon permits such as the EU policy the best solution?

Founded in 2008, PwP was launched to build community among travel bloggers and provide a way for travelers to give back to the places they visit. Every year, the founders select a specific project to support, from building a school in rural Cambodia to constructing an entire village in India.

“We pick our projects really carefully,” explains Mandel. “We’re partial to education projects, and projects that help women and children. We also look for some kind of partnership locally that makes it sustainable. The ability of the project to run on its own after we launch it is critical. We also look for projects where we can make a high impact with the amount of money we can raise.”

Villagers in southern India build homes with funds raised by Passports with Purpose in 2010. Photo by Beth Whitman.

This year, PwP seeks to raise $80,000 for Room to Read to build two libraries, to be located next to schools in southern and eastern Zambia. The project will provide hundreds of children with access to age-appropriate books in their own language, at libraries staffed by trained librarians.

The PwP fundraising model is simple: Travel bloggers line up prize donations and promote these prizes and PwP on their blogs. The posts link back to the Donate page of the PwP website, where the public can make donations in $10 increments. Each $10 donation earns one entry to win the prize of the donor’s choice. Donors who make more than one $10 donation can choose to split their entries between multiple prizes or put all their entries toward a single prize. At the end of the fundraiser, a winner is drawn for each prize from all entries received.

“What bloggers have is access to people who want to give them products to talk about on their blogs,” says Dubrow. “We ask them to use those connections, and then we provide the infrastructure.”

Raising $80,000 in two weeks is a lofty goal, one that the founders could hardly have imagined when they first came up with the idea for PwP in 2008. That first year, PwP raised $7,400 for Heifer International. Expecting a dozen or so bloggers to join in, the founders were stunned and gratified when 80 people signed up. Building on that enthusiasm, they set a goal of raising $14,000 in 2009 to build a middle school in a Cambodian village – a goal that was quickly surpassed, with nearly $30,000 raised.

“People sort of rushed in to help us,” says Mandel. “People want to do something that transcends their classic travel experience. We tap into the idea that when you travel it changes you, and you want to make the world a better place.”

Passports with Purpose co-founder Michelle Duffy cuts the ribbon at the opening of the Passports school in rural Cambodia, built with funds raised in 2009.

Co-founder Duffy had the opportunity to attend the opening ceremony for the Passports school in Cambodia earlier this year. Expecting it to be a run-of-the-mill ribbon cutting, she was blown away by the experience. “What I didn’t appreciate was what a really big deal this was,” she says. “When we arrived, the children of the village gave us an honor guard. They were tremendously happy that we had helped raise their level of education just a notch.” Prior to the school’s opening, the closest middle school was located too far away for most children in the village to attend; as a result, fewer than 10 percent continued beyond primary school.

Last year, PwP raised $64,128 to construct 25 homes in the small village of Karunganni in southern India – 25 percent more than the already ambitious goal of $50,000. Land for Tiller’s Freedom (LAFTI), a nongovernmental organization in India’s Tamil Nadu state, provided the land for the houses, allowing 25 families to become land- and homeowners for the first time.

This year’s PwP began on November 30 and is off to a rousing start. The nearly 100 participating bloggers have procured prizes ranging from travel gear to eReaders to hotel stays in destinations around the world to multi-day tours in places such as the Canadian Rockies, Thailand, and Costa Rica. Together, the PwP network of blogs reaches nearly a million unique visitors per month, along with hundreds of thousands of Twitter and Facebook followers.

“To me what’s so amazing is it’s totally grassroots,” says Dubrow. “If you tell a couple of friends about it, it might make the difference between our getting to build these libraries or not.” Eighty thousand dollars is a lot of money, but the PwP team is confident that its network of supporters will rise to the challenge yet again.

To help Passports with Purpose meet its goal, visit http://www.passportswithpurpose.org/donate/. This year’s fundraiser runs until December 16, 2011. Prize winners will be randomly selected and notified on December 23.

One of the travel industry’s biggest annual events, World Travel Market, takes place in London next week (November 7-10), with November 9 designated as World Responsible Tourism Day (WRTD). In one of WRTD’s most anticipated scheduled events, Leo Hickman, author of a widely debated book on sustainable tourism, takes the “hot seat” for what organizers are billing as a “contentious face-to-face discussion” with BBC World’s Stephen Sackur.

Hickman’s book, The Final Call: Investigating Who Really Pays for Our Holidays (Transworld Publishers, 2008), takes a critical look at how tourism has already changed the world for the worse and the negative impact it will have if it continues to grow unchecked in the coming years. “Tourism is one of the world’s largest unregulated industries,” Hickman writes. Far from being a boon to locals, he notes, “[e]ven in developing countries, most of tourism is controlled by a small number of Western corporations.”

Hickman, a journalist for The Guardian, lives in Cornwall, directly under the flight path of 500 planes that fly in and out of Heathrow airport every day. The noise pollution keeps him awake at night, counting passengers on planes instead of sheep. This sleeplessness turns his thoughts to tourism, specifically ecotourism, and the positive spin and aura it has developed. At its best, tourism is touted as a lucrative way for developing nations to make money. According to its proponents, it leads to job creation for locals, the development of infrastructure and the promotion of the host country’s unique culture and customs. But to its detractors, tourism promotes globalization, increases climate change and destroys the very cultures and nature that tourists spend billions of dollars each year to experience.

“What effect does our footfall have on places that are both environmentally and ecologically sensitive?” Hickman asks. “And just how much do the resident communities really have to gain economically from our stay?” To answer these questions, Hickman investigated several popular destinations across the globe. He interviewed resort owners, tourism ministers, housekeeping staff, sex workers, politicians and tourists. What he found is not exactly inspiring.

The problems Hickman discovered on his journeys include water shortages and coral bleaching in Mexico, child prostitutes in Thailand, human rights abuses against foreign workers in Dubai, melting glaciers in the Swiss Alps, cruise ships dumping waste into the Pacific, and a dangerous lack of sewage infrastructure across India, Spain, China, Costa Rica and Estonia. Meanwhile, many resorts and destinations are promoting ecotourism as a way to lure environmentally conscious tourists to these and other destinations. To Hickman, “ecotourism” is just another unregulated way to put a bandaid on a gaping wound. “Is there a term more used and abused in the tourism industry than ‘ecotourism’?” he asks. “What does it really mean? Are these tourists all ‘keenly involved in conservation issues,’ or are they on a holiday where the natural environment around them is just part of the entertainment?”

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization stats cited in The Final Call, there will be over 1.6 billion annual “international tourism arrivals” by 2020. In his final chapter, Hickman encourages travelers to think seriously about how they travel and what each trip means for the planet, advising readers to stay home for their holidays or, barring that, to find more eco-friendly alternatives to air travel. Further, he strongly encourages countries to place caps on the number of tourists allowed to visit ecologically sensitive areas like reefs, mountaintops and coasts. To prevent these destinations from becoming exclusive playgrounds for the rich, he calls for a lottery-based quota system and free admission to locals.

“My travels through some of the world’s major destinations did not reassure me that the industry has a full grasp on how tourism can so often be a negative force,” Hickman writes. “This is not to say, though, that the future is one of total despondency – far from it. Encouragingly, there does seem to be growing acceptance and understanding by some within the industry that it is in grave dangers of trashing the very assets of which it depends to survive.”

According to The Guardian, tourism already accounts for about 10 percent of gross domestic product in Spain and Portugal. In Greece, one in five people works in the tourism industry, which makes up about 18 percent of the economy. To ease the impact of the economic crisis, these countries are investing in greater measures in their tourism industries. For example, Greece typically attracts about 52 percent of its visitors between July and September, with other seasons seeing very little visitation, according to the tourism ministry. This disparity puts a tremendous amount of pressure on infrastructure during those peak times. To encourage travelers to visit year round, Greek tourism officials are trying to prioritize alternatives such as agritourism and religious tourism. In addition, Greece has waived landing and takeoff fees for aircraft, lifted visa restrictions for non-EU citizens and taken steps to facilitate foreign investment in the tourism sector.

Madeira's tourism revenue alone accounts for a significant portion of Portugal's total gross domestic product. Photo courtesy of Antonio Spinola, regional director of Tourism Maderia.

With almost 13 percent of its population engaged in tourism, Spain is targeting new markets from which to draw travelers and revenue. “Spain aspires to be the preferred tourist destination for India,” said Deputy Minister of Tourism Joan Mesquida Ferrando, according to the Indian travel trade website Express TravelWorld. To this end, the Spanish tourism institute, Turespaña, has established a Facebook page for India and is giving the Indian film industry priority in movie partnerships. Along with an e-newsletter for the trade market, Turespaña also recently launched a “Spain Addict” website with customized versions for various countries, including India.

“We have a resource that is better than oil: our weather, our landscapes, our culture and our gastronomy, which are unlike any other in the world,” Spain’s Industry, Trade and Tourism Minister Miguel Sebastian stated during an official visit to the Canary Islands in April, the Associated Press reported.

In Portugal, U.S. Ambassador Allan Katz believes attracting more American tourism could help reset the country’s economy. Speaking at a seminar on Tourism and Security in July, Katz noted that Portugal offers all the things U.S. travelers are looking for in Europe – history, good food, and good wine – yet most Americans know very little about the country.

Yet even without a growth in the American market, things are looking up for Portugal, with an increasing number of visitors from countries such as France, Germany, Spain, Brazil and the United Kingdom, according to Frederico Costa, executive director of the Portuguese tourism board, Turismo de Portugal. “A conservative estimate for 2011 would be an increase of something between five and 10 percent in visitor numbers and anything up to five percent more bed-nights,” Costa told the global travel industry news service eTurboNews in September. “We’re also expecting tourism receipts to rise by as much as five percent this year. 2010 was the turnaround year in terms of tourist numbers and, although some regions are slower to pick up than others, we’re optimistic that 2011 is going to be a positive year.”

The Cusqueña beer incident in 2000 is an unfortunate example of the damage the site has suffered as a result of its iconic status. The Peruvian beverage company was granted permission to film a commercial at the site, but a camera broke off a piece of the granite intihuatana, or “hitching post of the sun,” a carved stone pillar that is part of the most important shrine in the site, as reported by The Guardian.

Photo by Joshua Debner, used under a Flickr Creative Commons license

According to the Associated Press, UNESCO authorities are concerned about “deforestation, the risk of landslides, uncontrolled urban development and illegal access to the sanctuary.” UNESCO has considered adding the site to its Endangered List but has so far not done so. In addition to problems at the site itself, families in the area have suffered loss of land and increasingly contaminated water since the sewage system doesn’t support such an influx of people. Locals have also experienced rising inflation of food prices, because tourists will pay more for the goods.

A presentation by UNESCO officials convinced Allie Almario, Vice President of adventure travel company Myths and Mountains, that adding Machu Picchu to the Endangered List is a good idea. “I think it would be a good wakeup call,” she says. “People will look at it and say, okay what other measures can we take to preserve this place?” She has noticed that many travelers are looking for other places to explore in Peru besides Machu Picchu, such as the pre-Incan ruins at Chan Chan near Trujillo.

Tammy Leland, co-founder of Crooked Trails, a nonprofit, community-based travel organization, fears that adding Machu Picchu to the Endangered List might restrict access to the public. “There are other ways to mediate the environment and cultural damage on such a large site,” she says. Leland reports that the Peruvian Ministry of Culture is thinking of limiting the day pass to the site to three hours or having guards stationed to limit the time at each point. Officials are also considering offering alternate checkpoints to get into Machu Picchu to alleviate congestion at the entrance gate. ”I love Machu Picchu, but I think there are a million sites in Peru that need protection,” Leland says. “Alternate entrance points is a good idea, and of course it means more staff. But to me, that’s the best solution.”

The Ministry of Culture has already implemented several policies to protect Machu Picchu – for example, only 400 people per day are allowed to climb Huayna Picchu, a steep hill at the edge of the ruins.

Furthermore, Almario says the Peruvian government has recently imposed a limit of 500 daily permits for the Inca Trail, which includes all visitors, including guides and trekkers.

“Permits for the Inca Trail are based on a lottery system,” Almario explains, although booking early still increases the chances of receiving a permit. Almario says tour operators are now offering shorter hikes and alternatives to the traditional 4- or 5-day Inca Trail trek “because there’s no longer guarantee that they’ll get the permits.”

As an alternative to Machu Picchu, Leland recommends the ruins at Choquequirao. “It’s just an amazing place. It’s a 4-hour drive from Cuzco to get to the hiking village, then it’s a 2-day hike from there to the ruins 10 times the size of Machu Picchu.”

According to Claire Andre de Cerff, Research and Development Manager at Inkaterra, which offers lodging and travel packages throughout Peru, 10 to 20 percent of entrance fees collected at Machu Picchu go to the municipality of Machu Picchu Pueblo (also known as Aguas Calientes), while revenues from tourism are the only income for the approximately 5,000 residents of the town.

Peruvian tourism authorities say they have issued a decree that will funnel tourism revenue directly back toward site maintenance – rather than to the central government – in an effort to preserve the site, the Associated Press reports. With effective management, a system like this will ensure that the tourists who admire Machu Picchu can also contribute to its well-being for another 100 years – and beyond.

Projects linked to the games have already led to evictions of thousands of families in at least eight cities, often without adequate plans for relocation, sufficient compensation or involvement of local communities, said Raquel Rolnik, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, in April.

Brazil has enacted laws protecting squatters’ right to occupy land, but the games are speeding up projects that allow authorities to evict people under eminent domain provisions.

Last year, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, which will host both the Olympics and World Cup final, announced a $4.5 billion plan to redevelop hundreds of favelas, including tearing down 123 areas and relocating 13,000 families. Three expressways for buses, to be built by 2016, will pass through several favelas home to thousands.

Although some relocation is necessary for infrastructural improvements, authorities do not always negotiate with communities or give required compensation, according to Theresa Williamson, who has worked with grassroots groups in Rio for more than a decade. Williamson is the founder of Catalytic Communities, a nonprofit organization that is training youth from favelas to use reporting and social media tools to bring attention to evictions and share local perspectives on the mega-events. The organization started Favela.info and its English-language counterpart RioOnWatch.org to publish local news online.

A man carries a sign reading “No Evictions” during a July 2011 rally in Rio de Janeiro. Over 1,000 people participated in the rally, organized to protest injustices in the pre-event planning process. Image courtesy of RioOnWatch.org.

The Favela de Metrô near Rio’s Maracanã Stadium, founded in the 1970s and once home to 1,000 residents, is a prime example of the government’s “divide-and-conquer” strategy, according to Williamson. Last November, authorities began evicting families there to make room for World Cup parking. When residents received relocation notices, many signed off, thinking they would be left homeless, Williamson says.

“They were then taken in buses, crying, hysterical, almost immediately” to an area run by militias, three hours away, Williamson says. The public housing units there were far worse than the homes residents had built over decades. They were dislocated from jobs and schools and no longer allowed to run businesses out of their homes.

“They’re sent backwards by decades,” Williamson says.

Surrounded by bulldozed homes, those left behind have little bargaining power.

Although projects like public transit upgrades, community policing units and tree planting promise long-lasting benefits, some displacement is only facilitating real-estate speculation, according to Williamson. The impending games have doubled property values, and gentrification is pushing families out of more established favelas, she said.

Preparations are also displacing informal workers. Street vendors have been evicted from some sites to make way for roads, according to Maira Vanucchi, a researcher in Brazil for StreetNet International, a federation of informal workers’ organizations. She predicts more vendors will be pushed out in the year before the World Cup, as the 12 host cities speed up measures to “clean up” the streets and reserve zones around sites for official sponsors.

The view from a hostel under construction, set to open in the heart of Cantagalo, one of Rio’s oldest favelas, at the end of 2011. Image courtesy of RioOnWatch.org.

“There is also concern that in order to get everything ready for the World Cup on time, the government will declare a virtual state of emergency where the rule of law is laid aside, and that [the] public may support such measures in the general World Cup euphoria,” Vanucchi says.

Earlier this year, StreetNet launched a World Class Cities Campaign in Brazil to bring attention to negative impacts of World Cup preparations on informal workers and help them benefit from business opportunities. They are building on lessons learned from a similar campaign before the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, which like Brazil is among the most unequal nations in the world.

“Fundamental inequalities are only exacerbated when you host a World Cup,” notes David Roberts, a University of Toronto Ph.D. candidate who researched effects of the World Cup on South Africans. He found that police pushed out informal workers, and while jobs were created in the short term, most investment did not benefit average citizens in the long term.

“If there isn’t concerted effort to include social planning in the…preparations in Brazil, you’ll have the same thing – it’ll just be an elite event attended by the rich and really only benefit wealthy corporation owners,” Roberts says.

Travelers visiting Brazil can play a key role in minimizing environmental impacts and providing economic benefits to local people rather than just to multinational hotel firms or corporate event sponsors. Here are some ways to help:

• Stay in a locally run hostel or bed-and-breakfast rather than a big hotel.
• Visit local cultural attractions.
• Take public transit.
• Buy from local vendors, not just big chains or official sponsors.
• Follow the latest developments on local blogs, like RioOnWatch and StreetNet.
• Support campaigns such as those run by Amnesty International and StreetNet.
• Spread the word and voice your views.

Community bike programs have already been running in major cities all over the world, including Paris, London, Montreal, Mexico City, Miami and Washington DC. Inter Press Service (IPS) reports the total number of bike-share programs to be more than 130 worldwide.

Cape Town is one of the latest cities to consider adopting a public bike-share program for short trips, according to IPS. The bike rental system would allow users to pick up a bike at one of many points in the city and drop it off at another at an affordable cost.

Although the program is designed to make public transportation more accessible, there are major challenges to bike-share programs in developing cities. Several pilot programs in Cape Town have already launched with limited success.

In cities where bikes are valuable commodities, theft poses a major threat to bike-share programs. Because there are few secure places to lock up an expensive bike, organizers fear thieves and vandals will ruin the program for everybody. Some cities in Africa and India choose to sacrifice convenience for security, hiring guards or requiring registration paperwork to participate. While this solution does create jobs, it also reduces the likelihood that people will use a rental bike if they’re looking for quick and easy transportation.

Also of concern is the deposit and payment method; credit cards or down payments may alienate poorer users who don’t have the money or resources to pay a refundable rate upfront. Some locations in Africa are experimenting with alternative forms of deposit. In Rwanda, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Zambia, people can opt to leave behind their shoes for insurance and retrieve them when the bike is returned.

Roads can also be dangerous for cyclists. Along with reckless drivers and busy traffic, riders face roads that are rocky or damaged and not safe for bicycles. Especially if riders do not wear their mandatory helmets, this could be a significant obstacle in developing cities.

Bicycle taxis are another alternative to bike-share programs; they can move quickly through traffic and are better suited for people in long, flowing clothes. They also solve the problem of insurance or a deposit, because passengers can simply pay the driver by the kilometer. In Malawi the bicycle taxis, or boda bodas, have been popular for customers looking for an affordable alternative to public transportation.

Access to bicycles is a gateway to other public services like healthcare, education and economic development. According to World Bicycle Relief, a nonprofit that provides “access to independence and livelihood through the power of bicycles,” bikes enable people to carry five times more supplies and travel four times as far as on foot. People in need of medicine can reach the nearest clinic more easily, and quality educators can travel to areas that were previously too remote. Bike-share programs in Africa would undoubtedly help communities grow; however, organizers will have to come up with innovative ways to overcome some significant challenges.

Havana's Malecón. Photo by Michael McColl.

Cuba is often portrayed as a travel destination that creates different worlds for tourists and locals by having two currency systems and keeping locals out of nicer establishments such as resorts and restaurants that are reserved for travelers. The government chooses to import tourists to bring in capital, but do travelers truly benefit the local population or is it a double standard for “wealthy” tourists to live better than ordinary Cubans do in their own country?

The currency most widely used by locals, the peso, is worth 24 times less than the convertible peso used by tourists. Since the government also controls wages, the average salary is low – only around $20 a month, according to the U.S. Department of State. Only convertible pesos can be used for hotels, official taxis, museum entrance fees, nicer restaurants and higher-quality goods such as cigar and rum. As a result, locals with no access to hard currency receive second-quality treatment in their own country.

Still, tourism does help benefit the national economy, says Cuba travel expert Malia Everette, director at Global Exchange Reality Tours. While all major industries are state controlled, money earned from tourists goes to support healthcare and education. Cuba is also beginning to allow the expansion of a microsystem of local businesses – as long as it benefits the entire country. The Telegraph reports that more than 170,000 Cubans have obtained self-employment licenses under new guidelines implemented last year. Everette recommends dining in private homes and tipping generously to help benefit local businesses. While most of the money still goes back to the state, it also provides direct benefits for that business and family.

Many Cubans also offer side services to travelers for extra income, even though it is illegal. Janice Waugh, publisher of the Solo Traveler blog, wrote about her experience with state workers, “There was the taxi driver who gave day tours for $50 – almost triple what he would make in a normal day. Street performers busking quite successfully. Artists selling their work in doorways. Dancers (or not) willing to teach how to salsa!”

“Cuba has been changing for decades now, trying to steward and move forward,” says Everette. “I am blown away by the public systems they were able to keep after the embargo.”

In 2008, the government, under Raúl Castro, changed its policies to allow Cuban citizens to stay at hotels and resorts previously reserved for tourists, making interaction with locals easier for visitors. However, even with this change, the rooms have to be paid for in convertible pesos, which the average Cuban can still not afford.

Although the socialist government has been slow to move forward, the country may be at a turning point. In April, Cuba held its first congress in 14 years to discuss proposed economic reforms that would, among other things, eliminate the controversial rationing of food and goods and allow the private business sector to grow.

As modern Cuba starts to unfold, tourism can only help to bring in outside capital and expand the private sector. Under these circumstances, it seems unethical to maintain any form of travel embargo and deny the Cuban people that growth.

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For more about Cuba, see ET Executive Director Jeff Greenwald’s dispatches from his recent trip.