WHEN YOU TRAVEL WITH US, YOU GIVE BACK

Our unique travel experiences aim to inspire people to care about the planet by providing meaningful opportunities to explore it. We’re committed to sustaining the character and integrity of each destination we visit. In providing authentic travel experiences, we strive to support local economies in our choice of services. At the same time, we believe that the powerful positive effects of sustainable travel go beyond the long-term economic benefits, inspiring passionate stewards committed to protecting the places we visit.

Every year, we distribute a portion of our proceeds to the non-profit National Geographic Society, which awards more than 575 grants a year to scientists, educators, innovators, and storytellers around the globe who are working to preserve species and ecosystems, protect cultures, and advance understanding of our planet and its inhabitants.

National Geographic Expeditions also works with our travel partners to promote awareness about the world’s treasures and protect the places we explore together. The National Geographic-Ponant cruises support the Ponant Foundation, which works to preserve the oceans and the Polar Regions, and to encourage exchange with indigenous communities. Our aim is to support projects focusing on research, awareness-raising and conservation all across the globe. National Geographic Journeys with G Adventures also support local communities through a number of projects, from teaching hospitality skills to disadvantaged youth in Vietnam to helping establish a community restaurant in Peru.

Thanks to the support from people like you, our programmes and the future of exploration are possible. To learn more, visit natgeo.com/giveback

EXPLORATION LIKE THIS HAPPENS BECAUSE OF TRAVELLERS LIKE YOU

The National Geographic Society is an impact-driven global nonprofit organization founded in 1888 in Washington D.C. For over 130 years, the National Geographic Society has been pushing the boundaries of exploration, furthering understanding of our world and empowering us all to generate solutions for a healthy, more sustainable future.

It has funded hundreds of research and conservation projects around the world, inspiring generations to come with diverse research and education initiatives, and sharing their insights with the world. Each year, the Emerging Explorer Program honours and supports talented and inspirational people with innovative ideas – to date the National Geographic Society has supported more than 13,000 projects worldwide.

See below some examples of these projects.

Planet or Plastic?

As the amount of plastic in our world’s oceans continues to grow, National Geographic has launched Planet or Plastic?—a multiyear initiative to raise awareness about the global plastic crisis and reduce the amount of single-use plastic that reaches the world’s oceans. This initiative will not only benefit the millions of marine animals that ingest, become tangled in, and are suffocated by plastic each year, but will also contribute to the overall health of the planet’s marine ecosystems and all who rely upon them. While the plastic problem is in plain sight, we can help drive the change. Take the Planet or Plastic? pledge to reduce your use of single-use plastic and help us meet a goal of preventing a billion single-use plastic items from reaching the ocean. Choose the planet and take the pledge: natgeo.com/plasticpledge

Pristine Seas

Marine ecologist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala launched the Pristine Seas project in 2008 to identify, explore, and help save the last wild places in the ocean. The goal: to protect 20 of the ocean’s wildest places by 2020. These unique marine ecosystems are a window into the past, revealing what the ocean looked like before overfishing and pollution took their toll. It is essential that we let the world know that these places exist, that they are threatened, and that help is needed to protect them.

Photo Ark

The National Geographic Photo Ark is using the power of photography to inspire people to help save species at risk before it’s too late. Photo Ark founder and National Geographic photographer and Fellow Joel Sartore has visited 40 countries in his quest to create this photo archive of global biodiversity. To date, he has completed intimate portraits of more than 8,485 species. No matter its size, each animal is treated with the same amount of affection and respect. The results are portraits that are not just stunningly beautiful, but also intimate and moving.

Big Cats Initiative

The National Geographic Society’s Big Cats Initiative supports scientists and conservationists working to save lions, tigers, cheetahs, leopards, and other big cats in the wild. With your help, we’ve supported more than 110 innovative projects to protect big cat species in 28 countries and built more than 1,600 livestock enclosures to protect livestock and save big cats from retaliatory killings.

Together we’re helping big cats and communities thrive.

Out of Eden Walk

Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent and National Geographic Fellow Paul Salopek’s 21,000-mile odyssey is a multiyear experiment in slow journalism. Moving at the beat of his footsteps, Paul is walking the pathways of the first humans who migrated out of Africa in the Stone Age and made the Earth ours. Along the waym Out of Eden Walk is covering the major stories of our time—from climate change to technological innovation, from mass migration to cultural survival—by giving voice to the people who inhabit them every day.