Odisha is known for its scenic natural heritage and we hold deep pride in our hearts for the breath taking natural beauty of our state. We intend to protect, preserve and develop our natural heritage in order to help it flourish with glory. As responsible tourists, it is our duty to act in a sensible way and have respect for the nature and culture of place that we are visiting and do our bits for the betterment of the local community.
Beach cleaning is one of our regular event at the Odisha Ecotourism Foundation Trust and Team Barefoot, which aims to create awareness and action about the clean beach, safe beach & beautiful beach along with the care for our own environment .Certainly over the years the attitude of tourists and local peoples have changed and these attributions deserve to the local governments and community based organizations, who are relentlessly put their hold in making a cleaner beach.
Being with the track of SDG goals, our Puri beach cleaning event on 25th September has collected 324 kg of plastics and other litters from the 3.5 km of beach within 3 hours by the active participation of our dedicated 130 volunteers. Just imagine & #THINKS how much waste we generate if we calculate the entire coastline where we use for beach tourism.
It’s the time to #RETHINK TOURISM is this year’s theme set by UNWTO to celebrate World Tourism Day. On this World Tourism Day lets stand unite and lets each individual traveler; stake holders of tourism should #Rethink and be a Responsible Traveler where we may create minimum negative impact on environment and maximum benefit to the local community. Let’s starts from here….
Indiatourism Bhubaneswar #Odisha Tourism #Responsible Tourism Peter Richards Frosso #Dimitrakopoulou Planeterra Foundation #Priyanka Singh Heritage Tours Stefania #Campogianni Save Our Ocean
The foundation pillar of this project is drawn from the circular economic model which establishes a balance between profit, people and planet. The Covid 19 pandemic has impacted life at all levels. But, especially for the people at the grassroot level, it was very difficult to meet ends for survival. We wanted to empower the local community of Bantalbiri and other neighboring villages to earn some extra revenue for their living. But we also wanted this empowerment to be eco-friendly and sustainable. This is what motivated us to come up with the Horticulture project.
We started off by having conversations with the officers of the local horticulture department and figured out the best possible scheme which would provide the maximum benefit.
We decided to fund 40 mango saplings for 1 acre of land per family. A total of 10 families were benefited which accounts for 10 acres of land and 400 saplings. With the passage of time and nurturing the saplings, the horticulture department would return a particular percentage of the principal to the beneficiary and they would pay us back in parts and the cycle will continue till the entire principal amount is repaid after which the entire revenue generated from the trees goes to the family. This way, not only are the villagers economically benefited but also 400 fruit bearing saplings are being raised and taken care of which would help improve the environmental condition of the area.
The idea embodied itself on 5th September 2021 where 400 saplings were distributed to 10 families at Desia Eco-Tourism Camp, Bantabliri. The villagers continue to nurture the mango trees adequately. We see our project and the mango trees grow everyday with the passage of time.
Monsoon is knocking at the door. Have you planned to add a plant to your environment? By now we have realised how important is nature; how important is oxygen and how uncertain is life. It is time for all of us to work together to make our world better place to live.
We are proud to start a campaign to plant 500 trees in this year. On this Van Mohastav day; our Odisha Eco-Tourism Foundation (OETF) and Barefoot volunteers have joined with Puri Wildlife Division; Department of Forest and Beach Management Committee; Puri to add make our coast greener. We are thankful to Dist Administration and DFO; Puri for their support.
You are welcome to join us too.
It is an initiative at Puri which aims to develop a portion of the beach. We have signed an agreement with beach management committee, which is a government body under Puri District Administration, to maintain and develop 400 meters of beach for one year. We are heading strong towards providing our visitors a beautiful, safe and clean beach with well equipped facilities. We host a lot of activities to flaunt and promote our rich culture. We have also created an opportunity for 17 enthusiastic volunteers to be a part of this project and to drive us towards an absolute success.
For more details, please visit https://www.facebook.com/Niladree-Beach-100397768531446/ and https://www.instagram.com/niladreebeach/
Chilika(the greatest brackish water lake) with thousands of people visiting everyday and its own local inhabitants produces a lot of garbage which is not properly disposed off and eventually finds its way into the lake.
This project intends to create awareness and provide solutions to the problems faced by the environment due to plastic pollution. Plastic is a threat to the entire world and is a major reason for the extinction of a large number of species. We need to unite in order to come up with measures to reduce the use of plastic and save the Chilika lake and the special Irrawaddy dolphins found here.
The main motive of the project is to reduce plastic usage by engaging with the schools, colleges and the local communities. For any project to succeed, the most important aspect is the support of the local community. We intend to educate the youth about the harmful effects of plastic who in turn will educate their families and the cycle continues. Awareness is the key to change. In order to change their wrong practices, the local community needs to understand the disadvantages of plastic and the need to stop its usage. It is rightly said that education is the most powerful weapon. We intend to educate the locals and create awareness to bring about the change. Gambhari is situated near Satapada & Chilika lake. We intend to work with a panchayat comprising of four villages and an average population of six thousand people. We have an objective to work with the young minds of villages who shall pivot the change. We aim to create an enthusiastic team comprising of school kids called “Chilika Junior Rangers”. The chilika junior rangers will play a vital role in shaping the community. We shall educate them about the adverse effects of plastic and further work with them to reduce the usage of single use plastic and the safe disposal of waste. Each junior ranger takes over the responsibility of his/her own house and surroundings and ensures that it is clean. We shall conduct regular cleanliness drives, activities and meetings. So, as a first step, we visited gambhari and conducted a friendly interaction with the local students and tried to create awareness about making chilika plastic free and got a very positive response in return. The students were keen to bring about the change and we were served with alot of innovative ideas brought up by them. To understand the situation better, we spent a whole day in the village and gathered knowledge about the sources of plastic waste and means of its disposal.
This is a completely student driven project and gambhari is a pilot project which will serve as a role model for other neighboring villages. The chilika junior rangers shall protect the very existence of the greatest brackish water lake, chilika, which is at its closest to eutriphication.
To know more, please visit https://www.instagram.com/chilikajuniorangers/
Duduma is a breath takingly beautiful water fall which is situated a few minutes away to our camp, desia. Because of its enchanting scenic beauty, it attracts a lot of people who visit duduma for picnic. The visitors often tend to leave their garbage behind which is very harmful for the environment.
We organized various cleanup drives, installed dustbins and signage boards in order to clean the area near the waterfall and preserve the beautiful natural heritage of the Duduma Waterfalls.
