About Limosa

As a company with its beliefs founded upon the welfare of birds and the well-being of the environment, it goes without saying that we care passionately about the world, its wild places and its wildlife. We do our best to operate all of our tours in an environmentally responsible manner - not just by our behaviour and actions in the field, but by utilising conservation-minded local agents as well as local services such as guides, eco-lodges and produce in the places we visit. In recognition of our efforts, Limosa has achieved AITO’s 2-star Sustainable Tourism accreditation. Our ST Manager is Chris Kightley.

It’s an inescapable fact that air travel is a major cause of global warming. We take the issues of climate care seriously, and encourage all our travellers to negate their share of the damaging CO2 emissions created by their flights by making a donation in proportion to the length of their journey. Unlike some companies, however, this is not mandatory as we prefer to give you the freedom to make a personal decision how much to give, and whom to give it to. We will be more than happy to suggest appropriate organisations.

Many of our tours take place in countries where the whole idea of conservation is in its infancy and we must take care to be seen to act responsibly, especially by local people. We do our utmost to minimise disturbance to the birds and wildlife that we take groups to see.

We believe not enough emphasis is placed upon the positive aspects of eco-tourism, which can far outweigh the negatives as long as care is taken to minimise our impact. Tourism has a vital role to play in supporting local peoples, as well as fostering an enlightened attitude towards wildlife and the environment. Indeed, tourism can be a major factor in saving an area from harm or destruction caused by damaging industrial or agricultural practices and forest clearance.

In the same way, we believe that our tours to countries such as Iceland and Cyprus - where we are vehemently opposed to whaling and the slaughter of wild birds respectively - serve to promote the cause of conservation such that these practices may eventually be stopped.

We absolutely forbid the collecting of specimens or picking flowers on any of our tours.

Our Commitment to Conservation

• We actively support conservation through sponsorship and donation, as well as through our actions, our advertising in wildlife magazines and our support for important fund-raising events such as the British Birdwatching Fair - right down to recycling our household and office waste.
  
  
• Our restyled brochure is also much greener - representing a saving of well in excess of 500,000 pages per year as well as saving energy, using less trees and significantly reducing waste, too. Our brochure is printed on Regency FSC accredited paper, providing assurance that this paper is manufactured from material sourced from forests certified according to strict environmental, social and economical standards. It is printed using vegetable oil-based inks from renewable sources, and the cover section is laminated using Eco-print laminate which is sustainable, compostable and recyclable. We are a participant in the idesign4 Tree Planting Scheme to offset any CO2 on the design, print and production of our brochure.
  
  
• Many of our leaders have a background of working for conservation bodies such as RSPB, BirdLife International and English Nature, as well as various county wildlife trusts. By employing local guides and utilizing eco-friendly lodges on many of our tours - in Hungary, Bulgaria, Sri Lanka, India, Costa Rica, The Falklands and Gambia to name but a few - we help to support local economies and demonstrate the importance and value of the natural world, as well as to encourage conservation in developing countries where it matters most.
  
  
• Many of our business partners are active in conservation at home. For instance, our Hungarian partner Sakertour has been supporting owl conservation through the funding of a nest box project in the Carpathian region for more than a decade now, as well as working closely with the Hortobagy Environmental Association. In Ghana, our ground agents there have established a fund - PECK (Picathartes Education and Conservation for Knowledge Fund) - to help protect the breeding site of the rare Yellow-headed Picathartes, and to help local children in the surrounding communities with their education. Our 2012 tour to Ghana will again be contributing to this fund.
  
  
• The British Birdwatching Fair - the world’s largest annual gathering of birdwatching enthusiasts - is a major fund-raiser for conservation, having contributed in excess of one million pounds to selected areas of worldwide ornithological importance identified by BirdLife International. Over the years, our financial support for this event has included help for projects in Morocco, Ecuador, Indonesia, Vietnam, Brazil, Sumatra, Cuba, Peru and Thailand as well as for globally threatened seabirds, BirdLife’s Preventing Extinctions Programme, Ethiopia’s endemic birds, and this year (2011), BirdLife’s Flyways Programme.
  
  
• Other donations and support we have given over the years include RSPB, BirdLife International’s Threatened Birds Programme and Eastern Cuba project, the BTO, Oriental Bird Club (Green-billed Coucal project, Sri Lanka and Sociable Lapwings in India), SOVS (Spolocnost pre ochranu vtactva na Slovensku) in Slovakia, Sociedad Española de Ornitologia (Spanish Steppes project), and the WWT. We are Corporate Sponsors of the African Bird Club, the Neotropical Bird Club, and the Oriental Bird Club, the funds so raised being directly channelled into conservation and research.