Offset your carbon emissions

After your payment

As soon as we receive your payment, you become a contributor of our reforestation program. We will acknowledged your payment and send the details of your offset – i.e. the number of trees to be planted and the surface area to be protected - to your email box.
This is to mark the beginning of 20 years of work on your behalf. Be aware that we plant the trees only during Jul-Aug (monsoon) and in Jan-Feb (winter).
You can follow up the progress of the plantation and the growth of the trees by visiting this page.

Plantation and protection of trees

To the height of your offset, trees are being planted on barren lands, near selected villages in the Himalayas. The trees and their natural surrounding will be protected over the next 20 years. After the 20 years of protection they will continue to grow naturally.

We make sure that the planted tree species are indigenous and beneficial for the local ecology and the villagers (fruits, fodder, medicinal properties, etc.).

Community program

Your contribution will also support our social program with the local people :

    Involvement of the villagers in the protection of the newly planted forests,
    Women empowerment by helping them to set up their micro-enterprise,
    Improving the education of the children by teaching English and computer,
    Creating opportunities to initiate new income generating activities that are sustainable (beekeeping and handicraft).

For any carbon offset above 4000 INR (50 EUR or 60 USD), we will send you a carbon offset certificate with your name, the number of trees being planted and protected on your behalf and the reference number & geolocation of the plot of land on which the trees are being planted.

Photos of the reforested lands with their reference number are available on this page. Photos will be added twice in a year so that you can see the development of the reforested area.

Trust and transparency

With Himalayan Ecotourism you are sure to put your money in a solid project that really impacts positively the environment and the local community.
We have been awarded internationally for the relevance and fairness of our social enterprise model.

Along with the drone shots of the planted areas that allow you to verify the progress of the reforestation, a database about the status of the work is available.
You can always communicate with us to enquire about any details of the program.

How much do you reforest ?

The above calculator is based on the following factors.

    Average sequestration of atmospheric carbon per tree per annum : 15 kg
    Your offset is calculated understanding that the trees planted on your behalf will sequestrate carbon for a period of 40 years.
    The average density of the plantation is 1000 trees per hectare.
    The cost of the program per tree is 455 INR, this include the growth of the sapling in our nursery, the plantation the tree, its protection for 20 years, the social activities attached to the reforestation program, all reporting and government taxes.

Conservation of the environment and welfare of the local communities is at the heart of Himalayan Ecotourism's mission.
Since our inception in 2014, we are using ecotourism as an instrument to promote sustainable development in the Himalayas. Our community-based social enterprise is a unique award-winning business model.
Know more about our social enterprise model.

In 2019, our local collaborators, our cooperative members decided to launch a tree plantation project in the barren lands of the ecozone of the Great Himalayan National Park (GHNP). This highlights the relevance of our social enterprise as it ultimately led to a situation where the locals become responsible and confident enough to initiate a regeneration project by themselves.
Read more about it here.
We obviously supported their initiative by dedicating a substantial part of our profits to the project.

As the covid-19 pandemic spread over the world, we were left with no visitor, and hence, a zero income 2020 season. We were forced to find alternate sources of income for our social enterprise as tourism was the main source of funds for our social and conservation projects.
Fortunately, thanks to private donations, we were able to continue implementing the reforestation project. So, this gave us a bit of time to partially convert our activities to carbon offsetting.
Therefore, our carbon sequestration program is implemented following exactly the same community-based enterprise model for which we have been awarded.

By regenerating and protecting the Himalayan forests suffering from fast deterioration processes, we provide alternate employment to our cooperative members and local women, we contribute to the long term welfare of the local community, and of course, we sequestrate huge amounts of atmospheric carbon.

About half of our cooperative members live in badly deteriorated areas in the ecozone of the GHNP.
The members themselves decided that they should start regenerating these areas.
Two square kilometres have been marked out as the initial project area.

We divided the area into four different categories of lands where we work for different objectives with different strategies. These categories of land help us to optimize the efficiency of the project in terms of social and ecological benefits.
To devise these categories we took the following parameters into consideration :

    Local ecology benefits (no more forest fires, plantation of indigenous species, erosion, habitat for wildlife, etc.)
    Community benefits (Fuelwood, fruit trees, fodder, dedicated land for grazing, non-timber forest produces, local climate, etc.)
    Long-term carbon sequestration

The different categories are :

   1. Village forest. Adjacent the village areas. Fenced and protected from forest fires. Planted with nursery grown trees for fruits, fodder and other benefits for the villagers.
   2. Silvopastoral land. Within 15 minutes walking distance from the villages. Fenced and protected from forest fires. Fast growing trees for fodder and fuelwood. The ground level is maintained for allowing good grasses to grow (grazing of cattle).
   3. Assisted natural regeneration land. Further from the villages. No fence, but protected from forest fires. Direct seeding of indigenous tree species. No grazing allowed. This category is mostly to enhance the quality of the natural ecosystems.
   4. The remaining area is only protected from forest fires. Hence the naturally sequestrated carbon is kept into the soil. Controlled grazing allowed.

When the management of the first 2 square kilometres will be funded, the same programme will be replicated on similar areas. 20 square kilometers of such lands are available for reforestation near the villages of our cooperative members.