Horizon Guides commits to planting 50 trees for every booking

Horizon Guides has partnered with the International Tree Foundation (ITF) to commit to planting 50 trees in Kenya for every trip booked through its website.

The partnership will see Horizon Guides make a donation for every booking made through www.horizonguides.com to the International Tree Foundation, which will support the organisation’s community-led forestry activities in Kenya.

Trees will be grown from seed in community tree nurseries and then planted during Kenya’s rainy seasons in April and November.

The partnership acts as a reward scheme for Horizon Guides customers, enabling them to demonstrate their commitment to responsible tourism. Through the scheme, travellers can make a tangible contribution to reforestation in one of the least-forested countries in Africa. Kenya has just 7% tree cover, which equates to 67 trees per person compared with a global average of 420.

"The mass tourism industry has always profited from the world's natural beauty and biodiversity. Holiday companies pack their brochures with pictures of wildlife and use nature to sell their trips, but they rarely give anything back and, in the worst cases, are a major contributor to environmental damage and greenhouse gas emissions,” said Matthew Barker, founder and CEO of Horizon Guides.

"Planting trees doesn't offset or neutralise the impact of tourism but it does allow our customers a meaningful way to give back to mother nature. There were approximately 1.4 billion international tourist arrivals last year. If the mainstream travel industry followed our lead we'd secure the future of the world's forests for generations,” he added.

“International Tree Foundation is delighted to form a new partnership with Horizon Guides to support our 20 Million Trees for Kenya’s Forests campaign. We hope that this will lead to thousands of trees being planted by local communities with the support of Horizon Guides customers,” said Andy Egan, chief executive of the ITF.

The partnership between Horizon Guides and the ITF will begin on the 30th September. Since its founding in 1924, the ITF has planted billions of trees around the world.