Our Nature Reserves
With the profits generated from 40 years of operating our wildlife holidays around the world, our foremost mission is to invest in, and thereby bring positive impact and benefit to, nature and the environment. In these fast-changing times, our support for nature and conservation is imperative.
We set aside £15 for every person booking a long-haul holiday with us, and £5 on behalf of each of our short-haul travellers, which to date has raised over £625,000 and funded our very own ‘carbon retention’ project in Ecuador, creating our first Naturetrek Reserves. Additionally, since 2024, we have been investing our profits in purchasing land to create nature reserves in Italy and, most recently, Scotland.
Read more about the Naturetrek Reserves below.
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The Naturetrek Reserves in Ecuador
The Naturetrek Reserves in Ecuador protect critically-endangered cloudforest high in the Ecuadorian Andes. By making a donation for every flight we have booked since 2007, we have set aside more than £625,000 to purchase land that was classified by WWF as one of the 200 most important wildlife corridors in the world due to its high levels of biodiversity. Over the years, by gradually purchasing land that would otherwise have been cleared for agriculture, we have successfully created an invaluable wildlife corridor between Llanganates and Sangay National Parks on the eastern slopes of the Ecuadorian Andes. This has helped protect the rare species that live here, enabled scientists to discover species new to science, created jobs for local communities and supported low-impact ecotourism.
The Naturetrek Reserves in Ecuador comprise three distinct reserves: Candelaria, Viscaya and El Encanto.
The Naturetrek Stuckindroin Reserve, Scotland
The Naturetrek Stuckindroin Reserve sits at the head of Loch Lomond. Its 3,609 acres extend from Ben Vorlich at 3,094 feet down to the loch just above sea level, and it is home to diverse habitats, from loch shore and lochside meadows, to Scottish rainforest and wood pasture systems comprising native oak, ash, birch, rowan and alder, to high montane slopes protected within an SSSI on account of their rich flora. Naturetrek took ownership of the Stuckindroin estate in August 2025 and signed an interim management agreement with the RSPB, to enable their immediate management of the estate – with a view to a long-term nature restoration partnership being agreed in 2026.
The Naturetrek Macchietelle Reserve, Italy
We purchased the 120-acre ‘Macchietelle estate’ in Italy's central Apennines in 2023, and it is now managed by the Italian conservation charities Salviamo L’Orso (Save the Bear) and IntraMontes. The reserve forms part of a wider project to created protected corridors between the two national parks and three regional parks/reserves of the Apennines, and to extend all these protected areas for the benefit of the endangered Marsican Brown Bear, a distinctive subspecies of which just 60 individuals remain.
Rewilding at Naturetrek HQ
The Naturetrek office, Mingledown Barn, is set amongst 12 acres of grassland, formally used for livestock grazing, and years of agricultural activities had reduced the site’s ecological value. We have worked hard since moving here in 2014 to enhance our site for wildlife, rebalancing nature in the grounds around our offices.
