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You can offset your journey to Camping la Venise Verte !

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To further enhance its eco-friendly philosophy, the campsite Venise Verte set up a carbon offset scheme.

The site has subscribed to a specific project in association with Benin Ecotourism Concern.

The project

In the region of Lake Ahémé in the south west of Benin, a country in West Africa, the constant erosion of the soil means that fishing has diminished considerably as well as the number of fish.
The lakeside population is mainly fishermen who are now facing enormous economic problems.

Without help there could be serious consequences:

* continual degradation of their way of life, leading to further poverty and isolation.

* the disappearance of mangrove tree plantations, the continual erosion of the lakeside and basin leading to sandbanks in the lake.

With this problem in mind the Via Natura chain of sites of which Camping la Venise Verte is a member, and which is led by Camping Pyrénées Natura have set up a carbon offset scheme for their clients. The money collected by all the sites provides funds to replant the mangrove trees.

The mangrove trees are beneficial in three ways:

* Offsetting in a positive way the CO² emitted during your journey : a mangrove absorbs as much as 5kg of CO² a year.

* Helping to re-establish a habitat suitable for fishing, which generates income for the local population.

* Encouraging the stabilisation of the soil, protecting from high winds and improving the quality of the eco-systems by re-absorbing the pollution.

The objectives:

* Increase the tree cover on the lake side and streams so that a suitable habitat for fishing can be re-established.

* Restore the natural balance of the mangrove plantations to protect against erosion and encourage the re-establishment of the habitat for fishes.

* Put in place a system to provide finance for the restoration of the mangrove plantations through contributions to eco-tourism.

* Improve the socio-economic level of the population.

In order that everybody can contribute to the project, the campsite has put into place two controls:

1. We calculate your CO² emissions at the reception desk and the amount is compensated by the campsite itself

2. You use electric bikes to go shopping and you pay for them by going on line and sending a few euros via the website "Operation Carbone".

The results:

The Via Natura chain were able plant 80,000 trees in 2010 or 200 hectares of mangroves ! 200,000 trees were planted in 2009 !