sustainable tourism community & consultancy - since 1999
ecoclub.com
Joined November 2008
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ECOCLUB Luminaries™: Dr. Alex Evan-Wong, Co-Founder of Ecolodgy, Malawi
After spending 25 years as an NHS Haematologist in Scotland, Dr. Evan-Wong answered an urgent call from the Rotary Doctor Bank during the height of Africa’s AIDS epidemic. Staying on voluntarily as a Scottish Director for the Microloan Foundation, he helped train 17,000 Malawian women to launch micro-enterprises, from food stalls to village solar-lamp kiosks in a country where 87% of the population lacks mains electricity. That grassroots foundation ultimately led him to co-found Ecolodgy near Blantyre: a hybrid eco-hospitality and permaculture training center proving that conservation only works when it puts chemical-free food on the table and cash into village pockets. We spoke with Dr. Evan-Wong about the realities of community tourism, his £750 climate-resilient homestead, and why a humble plastic bucket can make or break a sustainability project. ecoclub.com/headlines/interv…
The World’s Most Immersive Roots Tourism Policy? Probably Armenia! Armenia may be a small, landlocked nation of roughly 3 million, but its global diaspora is estimated at up to 10 million people scattered across over 100 countries. It comes as no surprise that tourism policy makers have focused on this diaspora since independence in 1991. Rather than treating roots tourists as passive consumers of folklore, Armenia built an exciting proposition: the best way to experience your ancestral homeland is to live with a local family, learn the language, and work 30 hours a week inside a local institution! #rootstourism #ErasmusPlus #diasporatourism ecoclub.com/blogs/armenia-im…
Roots Tourism and Ghana's Landmark "Year of Return" Campaign:
In 2019, Ghana implemented one of the world's most effective tourism marketing campaigns: the "Year of Return." Related to roots and ancestry tourism, the initiative focused particularly on the devastating legacy of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Despite some controversies and frictions over inflation and diaspora settlements, and thanks to historic reconciliation policies, the subsequent "Beyond the Return" initiative has transformed the initial 2019 surge into long-term, sustainable revenue. ecoclub.com/blogs/roots-tour…
Ideas for virtual, low-carbon*, travel!
*(servers powering those websites also have emissions).
50 legendary internet rabbit holes you can spend hours exploring👇
1. zoom.earth — Watch the world via live satellite imagery
2. flightradar24.com — See every plane currently in the sky
3. marinetraffic.com — Track all ships at sea in real time
4. windy.com — Live map of winds and storms
5. lightningmaps.org — Watch lightning strikes hitting Earth in real time
6. earthquake.usgs.gov — Live list of recent earthquakes
7. submarinecablemap.com — Ocean cables carrying the internet
8. globalforestwatch.org — Watch forests disappear from space
9. worldometers.info — The world's statistics, second by second
10. internetlivestats.com — Current number of tweets and searches being posted
11. thetruesize.com — Compare the true sizes of countries
12. oldmapsonline.org — Maps from centuries ago
13. davidrumsey.com — Archive of 150,000 historical maps
14. openstreetmap.org — World map drawn by volunteers
15. window-swap.com — Look out the window of a random person around the world
16. virtualvacation.us — Virtual walks through cities
17. mapcrunch.com — Teleport to a random spot on Earth
18. atlasobscura.com — Catalog of the world's strangest places
19. neal.fun — Interactive knowledge experiences
20. htwins.net/scale2 — Scale journey from atom to universe (Updated HTML5 link)
21. eyes.nasa.gov — Explore the solar system in 3D
22. stellarium-web.org — Real sky map in your browser
23. apod.nasa.gov — NASA's astronomy picture of the day
24. images.nasa.gov — NASA's entire visual archive, free
25. pudding.cool — Visual articles told through data
26. ourworldindata.org — The state of the world with real data
27. gapminder.org — What we mistakenly think we know about the world
28. informationisbeautiful.net — Visualizing complex data
29. data.worldbank.org — World Bank's open data
30. data.tuik.gov.tr — Turkey's official statistics database
31. archive.org — Archive of millions of books, films, and software
32. gutenberg.org — 70,000 free books whose copyrights have expired
33. openlibrary.org — Record of every book in the world
34. loc.gov — U.S. Library of Congress digital archive
35. europeana.eu — Europe's cultural heritage archive
36. dp.la — America's digital library collection
37. artsandculture.google.com — Tour museums from home
38. rijksmuseum.nl — Download artworks in high resolution
39. wikiart.org — Archive of 250,000 artworks
40. publicdomainreview.org — Forgotten visual treasures of history
41. openculture.com — Free archive of culture and education
42. metmuseum.org — Met Museum's open collection
43. musicmap.info — Family tree of music genres
44. radiooooo.com — Pick a country and decade to listen to that era
45. listen.hatnote.com — Turn Wikipedia edits into audio
46. wikipedia.org — Random knowledge well
47. timeanddate.com — Time, sunrises, and sky events
48. sciencedaily.com — Live stream of science news
49. arxiv.org — Free preprints of scientific papers
50. observablehq.com — Visualize data with live code
Save this. You’ll definitely need some of these later. 🔖
Follow @Zayan5754 for more useful websites, AI tools & tech resources.
ECOCLUB Luminaries™: Marcello Notarianni
Watch or read the latest in our interview series featuring inspiring people working in tourism and sustainability. Mr. Marcello Notarianni, is not just a senior expert, but a pioneer in sustainable tourism and destination management, with over 27 years of experience in sustainable tourism development, consulting, training, and a valued long-time member of ECOCLUB.
In an hour-long conversation we cover a wide range of issues including tourism sustainability, regenerative tourism, overtourism, green destinations, certification, pro-poor tourism, sustainable transport, human rights and indigenous rights, the importance of local knowledge, consultancy work and much more!
ecoclub.com/headlines/interv…
ALT Marcello Notarianni
too much nuclear and fossil fuels...
In 2025, fossil fuels accounted for 29% of the EU's electricity production.⚡🏭
Highest in:
🇲🇹Malta (84%)
🇨🇾Cyprus (73%)
Lowest in:
🇸🇪Sweden (2%)
🇫🇮Finland (3%)
Read more 👉 link.europa.eu/MKXVkN
ALT Production of electricity by source, 2025 (%)
Ikaria can be called the Greeks' favourite alternative Greek island. Named after the legendary Icarus who famously flew too close to the sun, it is unique in many ways: a Blue Zone regarding the longevity of its inhabitants, a Red Zone regarding their political preferences, and a Fun Zone regarding its famous feasts, the "Panigyria" of Ikaria, built on a traditional culture of Mutual Aid!
The Ikarian Panigyria (plural, the single is "panigyri") are among the most famous and distinctive traditional festivals in Greece, only matched in fame by those in Arcadia, Peloponnese. While deeply rooted in history, the modern iteration of the Panigyria - characterized by massive crowds, collective financing, and all-night revelry - emerged amid post-WWII poverty as a solidarity mechanism. Today, they are deeply intertwined with the concept of Roots Tourism for the Ikarian diaspora. Find out more below:
ecoclub.com/blogs/roots-tour…
#rootstourism #ErasmusPlus #diasporatourism #ikariagreece #panigyria
We were very sorry to hear of Ronald Sanabria's recent passing at such a young age. Ronald was a genuine, green offspring of beautiful Costa Rica, a pioneer of Sustainable Tourism, Fair Trade and Organic Agriculture. As he mentioned in the very detailed Interview we conducted a few years ago, "If you are happy with what you do, if you believe and honour what you do, it becomes contagious to others!". His genuine happiness and positive, can-do attitude was indeed contagious to the ECOCLUB Team and everyone who had the privilege of meeting him! ecoclub.com/headlines/interv…
Around 70,000 marched against overtourism in Mallorca, according to the organizers. Unless local people protest, authorities everywhere will never get the message that Tourism cannot just keep growing so that developers can make more $$$
the world's peak season... how safe is it, and how far are we from zero emissions aviation?
July 23, 2026, was the busiest day for commercial air travel ever, according to data from @flightradar24.
A whopping 153,359 commercial flights were tracked worldwide.
Survival International condemns the arrest - without a warrant - of Pranab Doley, an activist leading protests against a new 5-star resort of a multinational, on indigenous land near Kaziranga National Park, a World Heritage Area, in Assam, India. IPRI, the Indigenous Peoples Rights International, has also called for Mr Doley's immediate release. survivalinternational.org/ne…
The village of Vamvakou is one of the most successful examples of regeneration in Greece, which has also included Roots Tourism. The Vamvakou Revival Organization, a social cooperative enterprise was created in 2018 with support from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), envisioning Vamvakou as a "model village" based on sustainable development and community regeneration. The number of permanent residents has already increased from 9 to 30, a clear indication of success. The Vamvakou Experience Festival taking place this weekend 4-5 July 2026, is a great opportunity to visit the village and witness that "roots are the most natural network still connecting everything"! #rootstourism #VamvakouRevival ecoclub.com/blogs/regenerati…
One more cruel reminder that conservation and ecological tourism may not bring peace, but certainly need peace. Hopefully Mona Khalil's many friends and followers around the world will find a way to continue her important work for sea turtles in Lebanon. Why is it so easy for some to destroy those who try to save us?
