The shimmering emerald cove beckons; reaching it requires a trek up the cacti-dotted cliffs under the Baja sun, then a scramble across boulders on a small beach. But if you arrive at the right time, the water is calm enough for a swim, and you may spot sea lions on the rocks or a whale in the distance. You might also, unfortunately, see a few plastic bottles.
This popular trail in Todos Santos, Baja California Sur, became a favorite of mine during the nearly two years I was based there. Now the small town is grappling with the effects of enchanted visitors who end up staying (hello, me), and it’s trying to avoid going the way of other overdeveloped coastal areas—ones without the infrastructure to support rapid growth, thus ending up with overflowing landfills and waste that leaches into the ocean (hello, Tulum).
“How do we prevent ourselves from becoming just another overrun beach town?” Bryan Jáuregui says. She’s a founding member of Alianza Cero Basura – Zero Waste Alliance, a community-led initiative to implement a plan for a zero-waste future for Todos Santos and the neighboring town of El Pescadero. Jáuregui’s question has urgency: These towns are located in Baja California Sur, the least populated but fastest-growing state in Mexico. As the co-owner of Todos Santos Eco Adventures and Los Colibris Casitas boutique hotel, she calls it “enlightened self-interest” to take on her town’s waste problem.
This tension is not unique to Baja. Around the world, destinations are struggling to balance tourism and economic growth for locals while protecting their natural resources. And even though travelers are more conscious of their environmental footprints than ever, what can they realistically do about them? Is leaving behind zero waste during travel even possible?
Born out of the 1970s ethos of environmental advocacy, the zero-waste movement is focused on sending as little material waste to landfills as possible. The “five Rs” of a zero-waste lifestyle, coined by Bea Johnson in her book, Zero Waste Home, are the movement’s mantra: refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, and rot (i.e., compost).
A growing number of individuals are embracing these concepts at home: They are eschewing single-use plastics, purchasing bulk items at grocery stores, and taking their food scraps to community compost centers. It gets harder, however, to keep this mindset on the road: Most travelers eat out for most meals and, depending on where they go, don’t necessarily have access to potable drinking water. Travelers are inherently overconsumers.
In some places, tourists generate up to twice as much waste as residents due to the packaged goods they buy, including travel-size toiletries. Eight out of 10 tourists visit coastal areas, contributing to the 8 million tons of plastic that enters oceans and kills 100,000 marine animals a year, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. But it’s more than plastic; often overlooked is food waste. The hotel industry alone produces 79,000 tons of food waste yearly. Cruise ships can generate about 1.3 pounds per person per day on average. Cutting down can make a significant difference, says Vishal Kumar, CEO of Waste Warriors, a nonprofit in the Indian Himalayan Region.
“The creation of less waste means less demand for the production, packaging, and distribution of goods, which results in reduced greenhouse gas emissions throughout the value chain,” Kumar says. When organic waste is dumped into landfills, it releases methane, which has 20 to 80 times more global warming potential than CO2. Aiming for zero waste, then, is a climate solution.
We don’t need 12 people doing zero waste perfectly each year. We need 12 thousand, or 12 million people doing it imperfectly. Court Whelan
In 2007, Natural Habitat Adventures eliminated plastic water bottles from their trips and became the world’s first carbon-neutral travel company. It then took on another ever-growing environmental issue: waste.
Twelve years later, in July 2019, the company led the world’s first zero-waste trip in Yellowstone National Park. To divert 99 percent of the trip’s waste—which would otherwise end up in a landfill—guests carried bamboo cutlery that they washed between meals and a compost bucket for all uneaten food scraps.
While Natural Habitat Adventures isn’t leading 100 percent zero-waste adventures anymore, that doesn’t mean the experiment failed. “We learned that zero waste is possible. However, it is indeed very resource- and time-intensive,” says Court Whelan, chief sustainability officer of Natural Habitat Adventures, of the 18 months researching and planning for the trip.
“I don’t think the extreme confines of zero-waste travel is the end goal. I think examples of zero waste, whether it’s on a certain trip or camp, leave an inspirational echo across the industry.” It’s more about instigating change, and any “waste-lessening movement” is moving toward the goal line, he adds.
“We don’t need 12 people doing zero waste perfectly each year. We need 12 thousand or 12 million people doing it imperfectly.”
One of the best ways travelers can work toward a zero-waste mindset on the road is to dig deeper into where their dollars are going.
Alianza Cero Basura created a way for travelers to support businesses in Todos Santos and El Pescadero that self-assess their waste-reductions impact with a directory of Waste Wise All Stars. Beyond using this guide to find local restaurants and hotels actively working to reduce their waste, travelers can fill up their water bottles at one of Alianza’s refill stations installed throughout town. Alianza also created the first community-led organic waste farm and research center in Baja California Sur; it produces soil-enhancing products and compost, diverting 60 percent of the town’s organic waste from the landfill.
Meanwhile, Norwegian cruise company Hurtigruten—which banned single-use plastics in 2018 and has introduced zero-emissions vehicles and hybrid-powered cruise ships—in April 2024 launched a zero-edible-food-waste program with a goal to, well, reduce food waste to zero grams per guest. Edible food waste from Hurtigruten’s Original Coastal Express ships, which sail along the coast of Norway, will be composted and sent to a local farm that will use it to cultivate products that Hurtigruten will use in its menus. “Farm to fleet to farm” is its goal.
Still, the most obvious and easiest way to create less waste is by refusing. Consider: The more things we acquire, the more things will become waste. On the road, think about what you need. Can you split dishes with your fellow travelers? Get bulk snacks for your road trip? Share some gear instead of everyone packing their own?
Another simple habit is employing reusables—and not just a water bottle. You can buy a zero-waste travel kit, or make one of your own, which could include a reusable tote bag (I carry my trusty Baggu bag on every trip); a reusable silverware kit that doesn’t look like camping gear; and bags and capsules to carry toiletries. My collection of silicone Stasher bags are for more than packing snacks; I use them to carry all my toiletries, which are poured into my magnetic, stackable Cadence Refillable Travel Capsules.
Pack light, and pack items that have multiple uses. Not only does doing so lessen your carbon footprint, but also it can save your sanity and budget. Instead of buying new gear for every trip, consider renting or buying used gear: On a ski trip in Aspen this year, I rented ski pants from Suit Yourself, a mobile ski clothes outfitter. Kit Lender rents outdoor gear and apparel, and Patagonia and REI let you buy and sell your clothing. (Check out AFAR’s guide to places to buy used clothing gear.) Root Adventures also discourages buying new gear by offering a subsidy for any pretrip gear repair, and it includes gear rentals in the trip price.
Mindsets change—maybe not overnight, but slowly, actions create momentum and conservation culture grows. One of the best ways to do this is to let your dollars do the talking, Whelan says. “Single-use is technically easier. Are we happier people because we are consistently able to make and do the easiest thing possible?”
Zero-waste travel is indeed complicated to attempt and even more difficult to adopt perfectly. When we travel, we’re always pushing ourselves—to climb that mountain, to make that plane connection, to attempt that phrase in Spanish. When we put the effort in, we’re rewarded. Leaving nothing behind is just another mindset to get used to.
NOS adapted its thinking. They started reaching out to the fishermen through their children by supporting local soccer teams and eventually the fishermen agreed to meet with them. “When we first went into El Manglito we thought we knew everything about fisheries conservation and all we had to do was convince the fishermen” recalls Liliana. “But we soon realized our approach was not working so we started talking in a very different way. And by that I mean we, NOS, stopped talking. We started listening. And it was beautiful how the whole idea of restoration emerged from them.”
But they were resilient. “The fishermen knew it was possible to bring the callo de hacha back, to restore their original fishing area” says Liliana. “We didn’t know it, but they did.” The fishermen knew where the richest points in the bay were for the scallops and knew what needed to be done. “We had assumed that they were evil fishermen and that we were going to save them. Turns out, they knew exactly how to save themselves.” Thus started the callo de hacha restoration project that took seven years and attracted people from all around the world – biologists, conservationists, impact investors. “Everything was happening as Alejandro and that team had dreamed. It was beautiful.”
But only once the women showed up. NOS, with the support of key funders, had made the controversial decision to pay the fishermen during the restoration period while fishing was suspended. Some of their wives were not impressed with the results. Martha Garcia, speaking for herself and her friend Araceli Méndez says, “As soon as our husbands started receiving payment for not fishing during the restoration, our dream of transforming El Manglito into a beautiful, healthy community became just a job for them. They lost the dream.” Araceli didn’t think their husbands were performing particularly well at the job either. El Manglito had instituted a surveillance system at the Conchalito scallop banks to keep the poachers out, and the men were approaching the banks by boat. Notes Araceli, “It gets really shallow there so the boats would get stuck in the mud and the men would just end up having shouting matches with the poachers who would always get away with the scallops overland.” Their friend Graciela Olachea designed a new approach. “We could tell where the poachers were accessing the banks by land” continues Araceli, “So me, Graciela, Martha, and several other women started patrolling the land around the banks and scaring off the poachers that way.” The women achieved in 3 months what the men had failed to achieve in 3 years. The poachers were gone. Liliana sighs ruefully, “We should have started with the women.”
Las Guardianas take turns telling some of their story. “The mangrove area at Conchalito where we ran off the poachers was a disastrous eyesore that served as a drive-through hotel, a drug dealers’ office, and a neighborhood dump” notes Daniela Bareño. “We reclaimed that land for the neighborhood.” Her colleague Claudia Reyes continued. “The first thing we did was push huge stones across the entryway to stop vehicles from entering, then we organized massive trash cleanups in which we got all segments of the neighborhood engaged. We were taking out 3 tons of trash at a time.” Daniela continued, “While we were cleaning the area, a woman came running in who was being pursued by some scary men. Araceli, Marta and I chased those men away. That incident made us realize that women come here because they know that we are women creating a safe space for women.” El Conchalito is now a beautiful public space for the people of La Paz where people come to walk their dogs, go bird watching, and enjoy the mangroves. Rosa Hale, who tracks usage of the area is particularly proud of one statistic, “The number of women using the space has increased by 70% since we started.”
Liliana nominated Las Guardianas for a National Geographic grant. They won and received training in birdwatching to further their dream of guiding people on birding trips through the mangroves. Inspired, Araceli pondered why the women never dove, only the men. They all sent letters to the Women Divers Hall of Fame in the US which awarded a scholarship to each Guardiana who wanted to learn to dive. The photo of Araceli, Martha and Claudia diving with the National Geographic flag is now the stuff of legend.
And this is how Las Guardianas get things done. They support each other to pursue their own passions, and they inform the NGOs about what support is most beneficial to them. While there’s scarcely a high school diploma amongst them, Araceli is now the “biologist” and is the first woman oyster farmer in La Paz; Daniela is the “engineer” who is working on restoring the Conchalito mangroves in conjunction with WildCoast; Claudia is the “Professor” who teaches people about El Conchalito and takes courses on sustainable business initiatives; Rosa is the “Secretary” who generates use statistics for the estuary; and Martha is the “lawyer” who negotiates deals and recently got Las Guardianas incorporated as their own legal entity. More importantly, she negotiated the permit for the group to restore the Conchalito mangroves, the first time such a permit has ever been issued in La Paz.
As a traveler, you have the unique opportunity to enjoy unforgettable experiences while making a positive impact on the world. Sometimes the question is just, “how?”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/TAL-header-camp-cecil-la-paz-mexico-LAPAZGLAMP1024-e2bc9b1af51d4280be8cef48cd658a99.jpg)
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/TAL-vlero-isla-espiritu-santo-LAPAZGLAMP1024-4e91fc3d053840e2b99d69c535d9cad1.jpg)
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/TAL-snorkeling-isla-LAPAZGLAMP1024-35260bf1799f49bd8499a5d1c53a9ff6.jpg)
“It was so hot and the terrain was so steep and challenging” recalls La Paz-based bighorn sheep hunting translator Angel Antonio Marquez. “We had to stick to the shadows so the sheep couldn’t see us, making the walking even more difficult. When we were 850 yards from the ram the hunter decided to take the shot. We all thought he was crazy since it was so far and we were not at all surprised when he missed. The bullet went right between that sheep’s legs.” Angel continued, “Now this would have scared away most animals, but there was a female sheep nearby and this male was trying to be macho for her so he just stood there. The hunter got him on the second shot. 850 yards. It is the record for the farthest shot in this area.”
The UMAs of BCS pay for a team of technicians to regularly monitor the bighorn sheep population on land, participate in the hunts, and accompany the aerial surveys that are conducted every three years. The technicians are extremely clear in their minds about the value of the trophy program. “If it were not for the economic power of the trophy permits, the Bighorn sheep population would almost certainly have been decimated by now and the ejidos would have sold off most of the land” observes Ing. Antia Duarte Camacho, Field Technician of de Ejido San Jose de la Noria and Ejido Lic. Alfredo V. Bonfil. “The bighorn sheep habitat is all along the Sea of Cortez, making that land extremely valuable.” Her colleague Ecologist Miguel Angel Aguilar Juárez, Field Technician of Ejidos Ley Federal de Aguas 1, 2 and 3 adds, “By 2014 the ejidos, many of which had been impoverished, were really starting to understand the huge, sustained, economic lift flowing from the trophy program. They developed a deep appreciation for the value of the land that they own and the sheep that inhabit it. That is when they all really started working together to make the program work as a whole in BCS. Bighorn sheep move seasonally across a vast territory so corridors are important. Income from bighorn sheep hunting started motivating the ejidos to work together to maintain these huge areas with no other human activities, including the raising of livestock.” CONABIO points to the resulting large-scale habitat conservation and improved connectivity as a major achievement of the trophy hunting program.
The horns and skin of the bighorn sheep shot by the hunter at 850 yards are still in the office of the technical team in La Paz. Issuance of the CITES permit for the trophy to be transported across international borders to the US-based hunter could take 3-4 months (SEMARNAT must also be consulted). CITES is a legally binding agreement between governments that works to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals or plants does not threaten the survival of the species. Only Mexico’s bighorn sheep population is listed on CITES Appendix II which covers species that are not necessarily threatened by international trade but that are deemed worthy of a close eye so that they do not slip into the highest category of endangerment, Appendix I. When weighing the permit to send this hunter his trophy they will carefully review, among other things, the report of the UMA technician who accompanied the hunt and took detailed notes on the geographical coordinates of where the sheep was hunted, estimated age, days taken to carry out the hunt and so forth. The technician also took biological samples for disease analysis.