Did you know that we donate 2% of the profit from each and every snorkelling excursion and anything else we sell to a reforestation project here on the Canary Islands?
As a small business that is still establishing, it is definitely not an easy decision to donate part of our profits to a good cause from day one. However it has always been clear that we want to contribute as much as we can to the preservation of the precious Canary Island ecosystems that we cherish and depend on. Our mission is to educate and raise awareness on our excursions, to treat the environment with utmost respect and to inspire our participants to protect the environment. But in order to increase our positive impact on the archipelago's biosphere, we decided to contribute to a project that does critical conservation work.
Canarian forests are diverse, housing a range of endemic plant and animal species and are often described as living fossils because they represent a type forest that once covered large parts of Southern Europe but has now mostly been eradicated from its original range. Our islands are not immune to population growth and development but luckily some of the precious forest habitat still exists here.
Fundación Foresta is planting indigenous trees in historically deforested areas on the Canary Islands and is thereby restoring an exceptional environmental heritage. Their work becomes increasingly important as our islands are dealing with the accelerating impacts of climate change - especially droughts and forest fires. In August 2019 several fires broke out on Gran Canaria, they lasted more than 2 weeks and destroyed over 10.000 hectares of land , more than 84% of which belonged to protected natural spaces. Recovering what has been lost in a fortnight will take decades even with current rehabilitation efforts.
More than half a million trees have been planted by Fundación Foresta - an exceptional achievement. We are proud that we can contribute to their efforts by donating 2% of our profits to this outstanding organisation and thus making our snorkelling excursions an even more sustainable activity.