Our commitment

Keeping Nature Tours was born from the heart of a biologist and a deep love for wildlife. For us, tourism is not separate from conservation — it is a way to fund it, teach it, and make it visible. We believe that nature travel, done responsibly and at a small scale, can help protect the very ecosystems and communities it depends on.

This policy states what we commit to and how we work. We would rather promise less and keep our word than claim more than we can stand behind. Where we describe a practice, it is something we actually do; where we describe a goal, we say so plainly.

Context

Colombia is one of the most biodiverse countries on Earth. Positioned between two oceans and crossed by three Andean ranges, it holds an exceptional variety of ecosystems and species — from cloud forests and paramos to Pacific and Amazonian rainforests.

This natural wealth is under real pressure — habitat loss, climate change, overconsumption, and waste. We cannot solve those challenges alone, but as a tour operator we can choose how we travel through these landscapes, whom we travel with, and what we leave behind. This policy is that choice, made explicit.

Our sustainability commitments

1. Biodiversity conservation
   • We observe wildlife without disturbing it. Our field practices follow recognized good-practice guidelines for responsible wildlife observation in Colombia, including the Guía de Buenas Prácticas para la Actividad de Aviturismo en Colombia (Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism / FONTUR / Bogotá Ornithological Association, 2017) and the Manual de buenas prácticas para el turismo de anfibios en la cuenca media de Anchicayá (2022, developed by the local community with the support of WCS Colombia, CVC, Colombian National Parks and other institutions) — keeping our distance, not handling animals, using bird playback responsibly and sparingly, and leaving no trace.
   • We give special attention to endemic and threatened species.
   • On nearly every outing we submit our bird checklists to eBird, so the records our trips generate become public data used by science and conservation (eBird records are shared through global biodiversity infrastructure such as GBIF). We are also beginning to contribute our observations to iNaturalist.
   • Keeping Nature Tours was founded by a biologist, and our founder has contributed as a photographer to conservation publications in our region, including the community amphibian-tourism manual for Anchicayá supported by WCS Colombia.
2. Responsible use of natural resources
   • We aim to make what we use on our trips reusable: we do not provide single-use plastics from Keeping Nature Tours, and we encourage our travelers to bring reusable bottles and bags.
   • We work to reduce and properly manage the waste our trips generate.
   • Where we can choose, we favor accommodations and local operators with responsible environmental practices. (We do not claim to control the energy or water systems of the third-party lodges we use.)
3. Respect and support for local communities
   • We prioritize local guides, transport, and lodging in the destinations we visit, so that the income from our trips stays in the region.
   • We respect the traditions, culture, and territory of the communities that host us, and we support community-led conservation and tourism initiatives — such as the community amphibian-tourism process in the Anchicayá basin (Valle del Cauca), led by the local agro-ecotourism cooperative.
4. Environmental education
   • Education is part of every trip: our guides explain the species, ecosystems, and conservation context of what travelers are seeing, and we brief travelers on how to behave responsibly in the field.
5. Responsible tourism
   • We run small groups — typically 6 travelers and never more than 12 — to limit our impact and avoid crowding sensitive sites.
   • We operate as a registered tourism provider (RNT) and work with the required permits, staying on authorized trails in reserves and national parks.
   • We manage our waste responsibly and pack out what we bring in.
6. Working toward conservation partnerships
   • We are actively seeking partnerships with conservation organizations so that our trips can contribute directly to protection efforts, and we will name these partners here as those collaborations are formally established.
   • We do not claim institutional partnerships we do not yet have. What we can say today is that our founder has contributed his work — including photography — to conservation efforts and publications supported by organizations such as WCS Colombia (for example, the Anchicayá community amphibian-tourism manual).
7. Prevention of the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents (ESCNNA)
   • Keeping Nature Tours rejects and actively works to prevent any form of exploitation, pornography and sexual tourism involving children and adolescents. In accordance with Colombian law — Ley 679 of 2001 and Ley 1336 of 2009 — we have adopted a formal Code of Conduct against ESCNNA.
   • We inform our travelers, make our team aware of this commitment, and abstain from and help prevent these conducts.
   • We report any suspected case to the competent authorities (Policía Nacional, ICBF and the Fiscalía General de la Nación).
   • Our Code of Conduct is available upon request.
8. Respect for cultural heritage
   • We value and respect the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of the places we visit, and we ask our travelers to do the same.
9. How we hold ourselves accountable
   • We keep a species list for each outing, and we gather feedback from our travelers after our trips.
   • We are working to develop simple, honest sustainability indicators so that we can measure and improve our practices over time, rather than assume them. This is a goal we are building toward, not a system we claim to already have in place.

An invitation

We invite our travelers, collaborators, and partners to be active participants in a more conscious way of experiencing nature. Every small choice on a trip adds up.

Because nature gives us its beauty, and it is our duty to protect it.