Rainforest Alliance
Peru – Both trips
Our donations for our Cycle Machu Picchu to the Amazon and Trek Machu Picchu challenges are split between three
different charities. The first, which receives donations from both trips, is the Rainforest Alliance, which goes towards
protecting the heavily endangered Peruvian side of the Amazon Rainforest. Charity Challenge and the Rainforest Alliance
work together to promote sustainable tourism in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Ecuador and Peru.
The Rainforest Alliance is an international nonprofit organization that works to conserve biodiversity and promote the
rights and well-being of workers, their families and communities. In more than 70 countries around the globe, the
Rainforest Alliance works with farmers, foresters, hoteliers and carbon project managers to produce goods and services
responsibly and to bring them to a global marketplace. This charity works to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable
livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behavior. From large multinational
corporations to small, community-based cooperatives, they involve businesses and consumers worldwide in their efforts
to bring responsibly produced goods and services to a global marketplace.
The tourism industry is flooded with claims of “ecotourism” “green travel” and “climate friendly vacations;” however, the
disappointing truth is that frequently these claims are not backed up by any real or substantial actions.
At Charity Challenge, we are proud to say that we are working with the Rainforest Alliance to show our commitment to
improving the wellbeing of the ecosystems and communities in which we work. We have signed a legally binding
agreement with the Rainforest Alliance, committing to:
 Encouraging our suppliers (the lodges, restaurants, and other businesses we work with in the destinations where
we send our guests) to become verified or certified, either by the Rainforest Alliance or another third party
program that is duly recognized by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council
 Giving priority to certified or verified hotels and lodges in tour packages offered to international tourism
wholesalers or travelers
 Ensuring that during the first year, at least 30% of our suppliers in key destinations are verified or certified, with
increasing percentages in subsequent years.
 Making a charitable contribution to support the ongoing work of the Rainforest Alliance: to conserve biodiversity
and promote the rights and well-being of workers, their families and communities
Tour operators hold a role of great responsibility and influence within the tourism industry, since we help connect the
travelers with the destinations they will visit and the companies and people with whom they will interact and support. With
over 900 million people travelling each year, it has become increasingly important to ensure that the businesses that
travelers visit are helping, not harming, the environment and host communities, so that these same destinations retain
their natural and cultural treasures for future generations to enjoy while allowing the current generation of people and
wildlife to prosper.
Willka Yachay
Peru – Trek Machu Picchu
For all participants on our Machu Picchu trek, we also make a donation to the Willka Yachay project, which supports the
Q’eros people high up in the Peruvian Andes. Our donation has specifically helped to fund the creation and sustainability
of schools high up in the Andes
Willka Yachay builds schools high in the Andes. Their goal is to empower the next generation of the indigenous Q’eros
Nation of Peru to become leaders who elevate their standard of living, guide their community toward sustainable
modernity and revitalize their Incan identity. The project founded and sustains two community-based primary schools, and
an ethnic high school, whose curricula are based on a rich cultural inheritance. Mothers, fathers and elders play an
integral role in designing and teaching innovative programming.
The primary schools teach children to read and write in Quechua and Spanish, while the high school teaches language
and math skills through hands on scientific, environmental and ethnographic projects which also serve as community
development initiatives. Projects completed to date include the first bakery oven/water heater and a hand built
hydroelectric generator. Ongoing projects include studying and teaching Incan math, installing solar panels, developing a
traditional medicine centre and preserving and performing ancestral music. Future projects include growing nutritious and
varied foods in greenhouses and trout ponds and establishing a weaving cooperative.
The money from these donations is crucial to maintaining the heritage of the young Q’eros peoples, while enabling them
to interact with the modern world and develop their community. Without the work of Willka Yachay, their precious culture
could be lost to history.
ECOAN
Peru – Cycle Machu Picchu to the
Amazon
For our Machu Picchu to the Amazon cycle challenge, we also make a donation towards the ECOAN project to plant
native trees back into the Andes, close to where we cycle. This is done with the aim of preserving the depleted Peruvian
section of the Amazon, and also increasing the natural biodiversity of the area.
In 2011 Paul Cripps (the owner of our local ground-agents) and his staff planted 20,000 native trees in the communities of
Pampacorral and Quishuarani with the help of about 50 of their staff, porters, guides and drivers and around 500 locals
from the communities.
They bought the trees direct from their own nurseries, paid everyone for a day’s work and put on a fantastic communal
meal at the end so the vast majority of the money invested in these tree planting events remains directly in the
community.
The tree survival rate is over 95%, so the campaign is a really effective campaign to aid reforestation in the area and
preserve the natural habitat and watershed of the Lares Valley. Paul also appeared on local Cusco TV to promote the
projects and raise awareness.
Aside from tree-planting, our donations go towards projects with a focus on protecting the region’s endemic bird
population, many of which species are severely endangered at the moment. This goes hand-in-hand with the reforestation
effort, and the conservation programs are helping to monitor and find solutions to the severe problems facing the
biodiversity of the Peruvian Amazon.