THE GAMBIA    17 - 20 MAY 2010

ATA Annual Congress - Officially closed Thursday 20 May 2010
Press release about ATA Gambia 2010 - click here

Sustainable Congress

The ATA Gambia organizing committee recognizes that travel has an impact on our environment and has therefore decided to take responsability to leave a lasting sustainable memory of the 35th Annual ATA Congress in The Gambia. With the help of GiG (Gambia is Good), a project funded and operated by Concern Universal, a forest will be planted and maintained.

The ATA Forest
With over 400 participants from the U.S., Europe and Africa travel distances are expected to exceed 3 million kilometres with harmful CO₂ emissions being calculated at approximately 270 tonnes of CO₂. Given the context of The Gambia, a focused reforestation campaign is an ideal venue to offset these emisions while benefiting local communities. Focusing on value-added tree species such as Cashew will not only enable carbon sequestration but also provide targetetd communities and additional means of income. In addition to the tree planting, the planting of vetiver grass (vetiveria zizanoides) is a way of protecting the soil against erosion through ist non-invasive nature and deep roots. It acts as a natural 'pest trap' protecting crops in an organic way, it retains water in the soil, and the leaves make excellent mulch. Vetiver is also a very efficient way to sequester carbon from the atmosphere, with great results in the first years of planting. The combination of vetiver grass planting is done to ensure a short term carbon sequestation in addition to the longer term of carbon off setting effect of trees only.

Based on calculations from www.carbonneutral.com offsetting 270 metric tonnes of CO₂ requires 1,375 trees to be planted over 20 years. In addition to the emissions generated by the flights, the conference also needs to offset the conference emissions estimated at an additional 120 tonnes CO₂ needing 720 trees. Tree seedling production will take place at the Gambia is Good Farmyard for 2,500 trees to be able to cover all expected and unexpected costs/emissions.
As vetiver grass is not part of the Gambian nature this ATA Congress gives a great opportunity that via carbon offsetting this tremendous important grass will be introduced at the farms of GiG farmers to prevent soil erosion and enhance yields.

Sustainable & long-term impact
Besides the positive impact of tree planting on the environment and the soil conservation effects of the vetiver grass, the ATA Gambia Congress will keep its carbon footprint limited by ordering its produce from the interernational award winning pro-poor marketing business project Gambia is Good which sources all of its produce from local producers. This is a win-win situation for ATA Gambia, the tourism industry and the local farming communities.

More information about Gambia is Good and Concern Universal can be found on their website.

(Click to enlarge)
Gambia - Unspoilt nature

ATA Gambia Chapter
c/o GTA
Tel: + 220 446 24 94
@: info@gta.gm