You can be a responsible tourist, it does not matter your age or which country you are from or to
which country you travel. Your attitude and behaviour towards wildlife is what's most important.
Be responsible towards nature by:
- Drive and walk in trails already there, do not make your own.
- Do not disturb nests of ants, birds etc.
- Do not pick up worms, insects, reptiles, if you do, put them where you found them or if you take
them out of the road put them in the direction they were going in a safe spot.
- At night, shine your flashlights next to the animal do not blind them.
- When snorkeling do not turn rocks over and poke in holes, you are disturbing the safe places and
food of little fish and other organisms.
- Practice "catch and release" when fishing.
- Before buying fish, find out if the industry behind it, who makes millions, are taking responsible
measures when catching fish sms the name of the fish to 079 499 8795 and they will send the status,
green ok, orange borderline or red no. You can find out more at www.wwf.org.za/sassi.
- Do not use ketties and air rifles to shoot any living thing, use cans or a proper target. Parents be
responsible and a good example.
- Do not drive through dung in the road, there are many living creatures depending on that dung for
the survival of their species, some beetles only lay one egg per dung ball, each one is precious.
- Do not speed: Keep to the speed limit and you will have enough time to stop for a tortoise,
chameleon, Coucal bird or running buck in or accross the road.
- Do not litter. Plastic kills animals and plants on land and in the sea. Carry a bag with you and in
your vehicle and put all your rubbish in there. Throw the bag in the rubbish bin when you stop. Take a
rubbish bag to the beach too.
- Pick-up plastic and other rubbish when you walk on the beach or forest trails.
- Do not buy items or curio made from endangered animals) or plants (upside down trees), when
all the trees are gone and the animals slaughtered what then? Donate to the plant nursery that tries
to educate and replace trees in their communities. If you do not buy theses items they will have no
value in future and nature will be safe, examples are shark tooth items, porcupine quills, guinea fowl
feathers, toirtoise shells, elephant hair, fur tail items, deforestation selling wood and root trees. Find
out more at www.ifaw.org.
Thank you for reading this.
