Without The Blue There’s No Green - a Thought for Conscious Travellers
Close your eyes and dream of curating the perfect trip to Sri Lanka…
Let’s tick those island vibe boxes for a few days; brilliant azure oceanic views, whale watching, the softest sand beneath our feet and carefree holiday chatter with friends and family over fresh platters of seafood (or its vegan cousins) with a dash of lime.
Idyllic, yes but are islands like Sri Lanka doing enough to protect its biggest resource that will sustain the future of tourism? Ayu in the Wild’s efforts at curating trips for those who are acutely conscious of tourism’s role in sustaining that which sustains us - has been part of our purpose-driven policy to make tourism truly make a difference to Sri Lanka and our ecosystems.
How to Plan the Perfect Trip to Sri Lanka, With a Thought for the Oceans
The ocean is Sri Lanka’s oldest and most vital treasure and is part of every travel advice on what to do in Sri Lanka. Its waters are our lifeblood. Its’ oxygen, our breath. Travellers have explored the oceans on our best of Sri Lanka itineraries, snorkelling, diving among shipwrecks, sailing, whale watching and taken to the skies for aerial photography trips on seaplanes. Yet, the perfect trip to Sri Lanka also needs a whiff of Adams Peak, the adrenalin of Yala National Park and the beauty of the tea treks and Horton Plains National Park. So, what has all the inland adventures got to do with our oceans, you may ask.
Everything.
Sri Lanka’s Underwater Affects Life on this Biodiversity Hotspot
Famously named ‘The Blue Planet’, over 70% of our planet’s surface is the ocean. The ocean makes our planet a home, a habitat for over 8 million species on land and sea. It absorbs the sun’s radiation acting like a massive, heat-retaining solar panel and helps to distribute that heat around the globe. Water molecules heat up, evaporate and in turn, increase the temperature and humidity of surrounding air. The rains and the monsoons that fill the rivers flowing down from Adam’s Peak, that cascade down giant waterfalls, that recharge groundwater springs that fill the watering holes in Sri Lanka’s Yala national park, that create misty mornings in the Ceylon Tea filled hills and nourish the soils of our farmers in Sigiriya - is born in the ocean!
When Adams Peak, Yala National Park and Horton Plains need our Oceans
Outside of the tropics, or equatorial areas, the weather is largely driven by ocean currents. These currents transport warm water and precipitation toward the poles and cold water from the poles to the tropics – creating a balance. Without these currents, regional temperatures would become more extreme causing much of the planet to be uninhabitable.
This natural phenomenon brings whales, dolphins and other cetaceans but tourism’s connection with the oceans is much more than whale watching in Sri Lanka. The Sinharaja rainforests teeming with endemic Sri Lanka birds and flora, the estuaries and mangrove forests ripe for birdwatching and also stores up almost 4 times more carbon than inland forests, the tea filled trails for mountain hiking in Sri Lanka, the rivers for canoeing, kayaking and white water rafting, cloud forests of Horton Plains National Park and its roaming Sambhur - are all different habitats, intricately balanced by multiple ecosystems born of topographies and climates regulated by the oceans.
Collaboration is Key to Sustaining Sri Lanka as a World’s Biodiversity Hotspot
Sustainable tourism is all about matching profits with purpose. To restore the Blue and keep Sri Lanka Green, sustainable tourism practices, responsible travel agencies working towards travel as a force for good and conscious travellers can be the real catalysts for change.
Whether this collaboration manifests in large or small partnerships across governments, NGOs, locals, boutique villas and Travel Agents, the exchange of information is instrumental. A boutique beach villa or Travel Agent can action out a small yet sustainable partnership by connecting local coastal communities to conservationists and government authorities simply to facilitate knowledge. For many people around Sri Lanka, fishing is a way of life and a necessity, not a luxury. Children of fisherfolk could be upskilled and empowered with education and career guidance on alternate occupations, in contrast to engaging in unsustainable fishing practices that destroy the reefs or result in overfishing.
With 1340 km of coastline around Sri Lanka, these little collaborations can create a bigger ripple as communities that rely on the sea offer the greatest insights on how to navigate sustainable fishing and how to maintain balanced ecosystems. By creating value for an ecosystem, species or landscape, tourism can raise much-needed funds from a perfectly curated trip to Sri Lanka to protect and conserve the island’s natural resources.
Collaborating on these trips with Travel Agents and travelers who match our ethos of sustainable travel has helped Ayu in the Wild carve out our own unique niche in tourism and helped us set up the Sustainable Travel Sri Lanka Initiative. Now more than ever, there is a responsibility interlinked to the traveler and the travel industry to help preserve and restore the oceans. It is inevitably interlinked with restoring our Earth.
Safe & Secure Accredited Destination Management Company
To curate a best of Sri Lanka trip and explore safely without the risks, talk to Ayu in the Wild. Our unique itineraries help you explore safely with new health and safety guidelines and flexible booking terms. We were among the first set of Travel Agencies who received our ‘Safe & Secure’ certificate from Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority and our health and safety guidelines were audited by KPMG Sri Lanka. Only Safe & Secure accredited Destination Management Companies can operate holidays in Sri Lanka.
Ayu in the Wild Holidays is a 100% Sri Lankan owner-run DMC curating sustainable slow luxury holidays to Sri Lanka since 2012, through the knowledge of the widely traveled Sri Lankan owners.