Butterflies of the World - Lifecycle, Ecology, Taxonomy, Conservation, Photography, Butterfly Holidays, Photo Galleries, Book Reviews and more.........
Text and photographs protected by Copyright © Adrian Hoskins 2007, and must not be published in part or in whole elsewhere without prior written permission from the author.
Peru
Butterflies of the Andes and Amazon
11th-29th September 2008
 
a private tour organised and operated by learnaboutbutterflies webmaster Adrian Hoskins
 
 
  tour FULL
 this page updated : 28th March 2008
 
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View across the pristine Andean cloudforest from our lodge at San Pedro.
 
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 Other destinations
 
The Tropics
 
Adrian Hoskins, owner of this website, organises and escorts butterfly-watching tours for individuals and small groups, to destinations including Brazil, Costa Rica, Trinidad, Peru, Ecuador, Malaysia and Borneo. I use the best ground operators available in the countries visited. Typically the tours are of 2-3 weeks duration, and we spend 3-4 days at each location, allowing plenty of time to fully explore the habitats and get to know the sites and their butterflies intimately. The sites are thoroughly researched, and visits timed to coincide with the peak butterfly season. These are not "follow-the-leader" trips - I encourage people to explore the trails at their own pace, so that they can study and photograph butterflies without a queue of people behind them. I do not permit collecting, or the use of butterfly nets. For further details please contact me by e-mail.

Additionally I am able to organise and operate butterfly-watching and bird-watching trips using local guides, to destinations throughout the tropics. These tailor-made trips are usually designed so that you spend 3-4 days at each of 3 sites. A typical itinerary might include e.g. 4 days at a lowland rainforest site, followed by 4 days at a cloudforest, and end with 4 days on the coast. At each site you would be accommodated at a comfortable eco-lodge, where trails would lead from the door of your bungalow directly into the forest. In most cases you would use local English-speaking guides, who know the habitats intimately. On all these trips you are met at the airport by my ground operator, who will make all arrangements for transfers between sites. If you would like to discuss your plans, please contact me by e-mail.

Europe and North America

I specialise in tropical destinations and do not normally operate trips to Europe or North America.

If you are interested in visiting Mexico or the United States, I would recommend the U.S. based operator Sunstreak Tours , who run a program of about a dozen butterfly-watching tours each year.

If you are interested in visiting Europe, I would recommend Naturetrek and Greentours, who both operate several European tours that focus heavily on butterfly watching.

Bird-watching and wildlife tours

There are many other operators who run excellent wildlife watching holidays throughout the world, but before committing to such a tour I would recommend that you check the itineraries very thoroughly. These trips are often fast-paced, and do not allow enough time at the habitats to photograph or study butterflies. Many of the habitats visited will not be rich in butterflies, and you may find that you spend more time in vehicles than on foot.

The same applies to bird-watching tours. Birders typically want a tour that crams as many habitats as possible into the itinerary, so they can build up the largest possible species lists. These trips often allow very little time for relaxed exploration, and usually tend to concentrate on areas that are rich in birds but poor for butterflies, e.g. marshes, sewage ponds, high altitude grasslands and deserts.

 

 
Carbon-offsetting
We are subjected daily to media reports about global warming, carbon emissions, and our so-called carbon footprint. Air travel accounts for only a tiny percentage of emissions, but has been an easy target and has been singled out for particular criticism.
Sadly, we see very little media coverage of the enormous benefits that tourism brings to the countries to which we fly. It generates wealth, enhances world peace, and in the case of eco-tourism hugely encourages the protection of rainforests and other wildlife habitats, which would otherwise be destroyed.
Most rainforest reserves, such as Danum in Borneo, only survive because of the demand by eco-tourists for their retention. The same can be said of much of the Amazon, the cloudforests of the Andes, the game parks of East Africa, the tiger reserves of India, the orang-utan reserves of Kalimantan etc. Without the income and employment generated by eco-tourism, these wonderful places would be cultivated or urbanised out of existence.
learnaboutbutterflies.com has no intention of starting yet another carbon-offsetting scheme or collecting any payments from tour participants for this purpose. However, if you are persuaded to offset your carbon emissions by paying an amount into one of the many schemes already available, we would like to draw to your attention the World Land Trust. At http://www.worldlandtrust.org  you can calculate an amount to pay that will offset your emissions from air travel, and also those from your car, television, computer, washing machine, central-heating and the rest of your 21st Century life-style. This amount can then be used to support rainforest conservation.
On the other hand, if you would like to actively contribute to rainforest conservation, at no cost, we would invite you to visit the rainforestportal website where you can find more detailed information, and take part in on-line petitions to save the Amazon and the rainforests of Africa and Asia.
 
Text and photographs protected by Copyright © Adrian Hoskins 2007-2008, and must not be reproduced or published in part or in whole elsewhere in any form without written permission from Adrian Hoskins. Breach of copyright will be pursued by litigation.
 
Website designed, produced and owned by Adrian Hoskins