Giving back is an important mantra that we hold proud at Prometour. We know that air travel is not the best for the environment, that's why we started offering all of our travellers the option to offset their carbon emissions every time they do choose to travel with us.
Teaming up with Taking Root for 3 years now, as an entire team we have become more eco-friendly and environmentally conscious in the office when it comes to recycling, opting for natural sunlight (when we can!) and opening our beautiful bay windows instead of blasting the AC. Check out how Giving Back with Prometour: Taking Root is easy for a traveler like you!Meet Kahlil Baker,
For the past 9 years, Kahlil has been proactively working towards his mission of offsetting the carbon prints of individuals, to small businesses and large corporations while offering jobs to those in need. So how does Taking Root do it? We asked Kahlil if he could sit down with us to talk more about Taking Root, his goals for the organization's future and how travelers like you can do their part (especially when choosing to travel with Prometour).1) Who and what is Taking Root? (Brief history, how it came about etc.)
Formed in 2007, Taking Root is a pioneer in leveraging the forest carbon offset industry to promote economic development amongst smallholder farmers in Central America. As a not-for-profit organization, our mission is to use reforestation as a tool to mitigate climate change, improve livelihoods and restore ecosystems. This is achieved by encouraging smallholder-farming families to reforest the under-utilized parts of their farms using native tree species in exchange for direct payments over time as the trees sequester carbon from the atmosphere.2) Why is Taking Root important? What has been achieved since?
Tropical deforestation is a major contributor to climate change. This is because trees are made up of 50% carbon. When trees are cut down, that carbon is released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary contributor to climate change. Through this process, deforestation releases more CO2 than the global contribution of all the world’s cars, planes and trains combined. The root cause of deforestation is people clearing trees from land to grow food or earn an income, typically in the poorest parts of the world. Local poverty drives local deforestation and local deforestation drives global climate change. Therefore, Taking Root is designed to address a cluster of complicated global issues, including poverty, deforestation, and climate change. Taking Root works in partnership with farmers in some of the poorest parts of the world to reforest their own land in a way that provides them with an income. We provide farmers with:-
Training on how to grow productive and healthy trees;
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Access to markets for the goods and services produced by their trees (e.g., carbon sequestration services); and
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Cash payments over time-based on the growth of their trees.