The secret activities of The Ritz-Carlton – Poll

by Annie Scott on


This past weekend when I was checking out the Ritz-Carlton’s event capabilities, I attended several presentations, including one on the ways the luxury hotel chain is continuing to expand and improve.

Not going into much detail, the Ritz-Carlton representative talked about packages called Give Back Getaways, Meaningful Meetings, A Vow to Help Others and VolunTeaming — I hadn’t heard of any of those before. One catchphrase he also mentioned (which did ring a bell) was Community Footprints, aka the Ritz-Carlton’s commitment to doing good things for the local communities they occupy.

With a little Googling, I found the Community Footprints website, which lists some of the above programs as well as their “Human Rights Policy Statement.”

I was not the only one who felt that this important stuff was glossed over in the presentation (which talked more about how the RC has expanded from 32 to 74 hotels in the last nine years and that they are developing a new concept called Ritz-Carlton Reserve, which will be a series of smaller, more intimate hotels). In the question and answer section at the end, many of my fellow attendees wanted to know more about all these great things the Ritz-Carlton was doing — and helping guests to do — for the environment and their local communities.

Then I learned something. Senior Vice President Ezzat Coutry responded with “We are very careful about bragging about what we do for the communities.”
What? Don’t they know that if travelers knew how much work they’re putting into their communities (we’re talking $8.55 million in cash and in-kind donations and 57,000 hours of volunteering in 2008 alone!), it would make them look good?

Yes. They do know that. And they’re way ahead of us. “We struggle with that,” Coutry continued, “We do something great — do we say it or not?”

“We don’t want it to appear self-serving,” added Verona Carter, Area Director of Public Relations for Mexico and the Caribbean.

Here’s what I learned — in my career-long quest to find out what’s cool and great and tell everybody, getting information about the good stuff some larger companies like the Ritz-Carlton are doing has often felt like pulling teeth. I never really understood why getting the information was so hard; why there weren’t fabulous press releases and huge celebrations … and it turns out that the answer is simple modesty.

In this age, where we crave more corporate transparency, do we just want to know the bad things that our large chains are doing, or do we want to know the good things? Does the fact that the Ritz-Carlton is so actively working on sustainability and the well-being of their communities make you like them more — and if they’d advertised it (above and beyond it just being there on the website if you go looking), would you feel differently?

Well, in any case, the word’s out now. What do you think?
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Bowermaster’s Adventures — Kamchatka v. Kodiak, What a Difference 225 Years Makes

by Jon Bowermaster on

We sailed into Kodiak on a somewhat rarified day for this part of the world, one filled with sunshine rather than rain. The weekend just past had been its annual Crab Fest, an event dampened by typical summer weather: horizontal rain and temperatures just above freezing. But on a big, blue, sun-shiny day you’d be hard-pressed to imagine a more beautiful place, the entirety of Kodiak Island and the snowcapped mountains that rim it wrapped beneath an indigo blue sky.

Ironically, the place it reminded me of most of was Kamchatka, where we’d been a week before. Both are spectacular lands of active volcanoes and hot, spurting geysers. The seas that surround both are the same steel-blue, the volcanic mountain ranges similarly tall and foreboding, with fishing boats moving in and out of the bays. Both regions share physical turmoil as well as beauty, visited frequently by earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunami waves. Rain is a constant for both (Kamchatka, 110 inches a year, Kodiak, 68).

Though separated by one thousand miles of Bering Sea they started out with similar human roots as well. The very first Russian colony in North America was founded in 1784 at Three Saints Bay on southeastern Kodiak Island and until 1804 it was the center of Russian activity in Alaska. Russians are responsible for the name “Alaska,” derived from the Aleut alaxsxaq, meaning “the mainland” or more literally, “the object towards which the action of the sea is directed.”

%Gallery-69645%In the mid-1800s Russia, worried that the expanding U.S. and Canada would usurp its Alaskan territory without paying, attempted to play one against other in a bidding war, which proved unsuccessful. Ultimately, in 1867, the U.S. bought Alaska from the Russian Empire for $7.2 million (two cents per acre) and would become the 49th state on January 3, 1959.

Today both economies are driven by fishing. Kodiak is consistently one of the U.S.’s top three ports, with 750 fishing boats working off the island profiting from a wealth of Pacific salmon, Pacific halibut and crab. One thousand miles west, biologists estimate that a sixth to a quarter of all Pacific salmon originate in Kamchatka’s highly productive waters, including all six species of anadromous Pacific salmon (chinook, chum, coho, seema, pink, and sockeye).

But that’s where the comparisons come to a screeching halt. The state of the local economies and the health of the natural environments couldn’t be more different. The air and sea around Kodiak are nearly pristine; in Kamchatka, far from it, impacting the quality of life for all. Per capita income is widely different too (Alaskans, $33,000 a year; Kamchatkans, less than $7,500) and, no matter what you think about Alaskan politicians (Ted Stevens?), those in Kamchatka win the prize for blatant corruption.

How did these two regions, so similarly blessed by nature, turn out so differently? Two words: Soviet Union. During the Soviet era, Kamchatka was closed to outsiders for decades, for military reasons; today half of the territory of the Peninsula is still controlled by the Army. The result has been hard on both man and nature.

One of the first things you notice in Kamchatka is that there are very few old people. The harsh climate is partly to blame, but it is human influence, rather than natural forces, that shortens the lifespan of local residents. Despite its unspoiled appearance, the peninsula is filled with toxic pollutants, the most frightening aspect of which is that no one is really sure just how contaminated it is.

Until 1990 Kamchatka was home to the Soviet Pacific Submarine Fleet, several major airbases and is still an important testing ground for ICBMs. This substantial military presence has contaminated the landscape with heavy metals, radiation and other pollutants. The large naval base across from the capital city of Petropavlovsk bobs with poorly maintained nuclear submarines.

The decrepit capital appears to have been forgotten by time. Crumbling, Soviet concrete-slab buildings line the once-lush hills dropping down to the water. The once-bustling port is now mostly idle and crammed with rusting ships and scrap metal. Poaching – mostly illegal caviar, but also whales – are big economies and locals blame the intense poverty. It is estimated that criminal gangs poach at least half the fish sold from Kamchatka; when we were there twenty fishing trawlers were moored out at sea, impounded for poaching

While I met some beautiful and incredibly gracious individuals in Kamchatka, I couldn’t help but think that their situation was desperate. The few I met who would talk openly admitted that the corrupt bureaucracy that continues to oversee the plundering of the region’s unique natural resources cannot be – or at least should not be — continued. For their sake I hope big changes come. Soon.

Bowermaster’s Adventures — Russia’s nuclear legacy

by Jon Bowermaster on

Just around the corner from Petropavlovsk, ten miles by land or sea, located across Avachinskaya Bay on a small peninsula called Krasheninnikova sits Russia’s largest nuclear submarine base. It is off limits to outsiders and a shell of what it was during the Soviet Union’s heyday. Today – judging by a simple Google map search – there are just a half-dozen active nuclear subs sitting at its docks. Worrying to those who pay attention to such things are the shadows on the far edge of the docks on the same map, indicating somewhere between a dozen and twenty subs piled up next to each other. They are said to be at varying degrees of decommissioning.

For decades the submarine station and a couple nearby support bases provided good jobs for locals and drew many Russians and Ukrainians to live in this easternmost outpost. They are also the reason that until the end of the Cold War Kamchatka was off-limits to the rest of the world. Even today, twenty years later, Russia continues to maintain a heavy military presence here.

The operation of nuclear-powered submarines generates considerable amounts of nuclear waste. Liquid and solid radioactive wastes need to be removed from submarines and stored. In addition, periodically the submarine needs to be refueled, thus spent fuel needs to be removed from the submarine and also stored. Decommissioning a nuclear submarine generates these streams of waste and in addition, the refueled reactor compartment must be dealt with.

It is a little worrying to me, an outsider, that the region’s two biggest industries overlap: Nuclear sub decommissioning and fishing. If the same worries locals, I can’t get it out of them during my day wandering the streets of Petropavlovsk. Most likely they are concerned too but are not going to share their feelings with a stranger.

Occasional testing of local air and water for radiation is done and recent tests suggest levels of both near the Rybachiy base had “slightly-elevated-levels. How much radioactivity is too much? One expert told me a story of some smalltime crooks who broke into the subs waiting to be decommissioned to steal gold used in their construction; stashing the goods under their beds was apparently not a very wise thing to do, given their radioactivity, which extracted the ultimate payback.

There are other concerns. In recent years there have been a handful of accidents involving Russian subs, fires, mostly and a couple very publicized sinkings. The Russian Northern Fleet’s main storage for nuclear waste at Kola Peninsula is reportedly leaking radioactivity. During 1997 all spent nuclear fuel, which was sent to Andreeva Bay, was stored in the open, without protection. At other big submarine bases, including the big one at Murmansk, there have been reports of nuclear subs being scuttled – sunk to the bottom of the ocean – without proper clean-up of the nuclear reactors aboard. Russians have previously admitted to dumping nuclear waste at sea, off the coast of Japan. The future of Ribachiy remains a big question.

This is from a U.S. State Department report: “In Russia every step of the process is facing problems. The support complex which was already in poor shape and accident-prone during Soviet times has been particularly burdened in the last few years. Shore-side waste sites are full of low-level radioactive waste and spent fuel. Shipments of the spent fuel for reprocessing have been delayed due to lack of funds and equipment. The service ships, which unload the spent fuel from submarines, are also full and in poor shape (and some have suffered accidents). The shipyards where the work is done are facing financial shortages, power blackouts and strikes. There are no final land-based storage sites for decommissioned reactor compartments removed from submarines, so they are being stored afloat in bays near naval bases. Finally, contamination is widespread at waste storage sites in the North and Far East due to accidents. Lower-level contamination is thought to plague virtually every support facility for the fleet. In addition, accidents on submarines have lead to contamination of the surrounding area.

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“The massive retirement of nuclear powered submarines has further aggravated this problem. The number of nuclear-powered submarines has declined substantially since the end of the Cold War as many first and second-generation nuclear powered submarines have been decommissioned. Also, due to lack of financing and arms control treaties, even third generation submarines are being removed from service. The Soviet Union/Russia constructed some 248 submarines by 1996 and some 150-170 have been removed from service. Only some third of these have had their spent fuel removed. Of the fifty or so submarines that have had their fuel removed only some 20-25 have been partially scrapped and their reactor compartments removed, sealed up, stored afloat. A particular problem is that at least one submarine in the Northern Fleet and three submarines in the Pacific Fleet were retired due to nuclear accidents. They have damaged spent fuel on board and the Russian Navy is uncertain about how to decommission them.

“Another concern with decommissioned submarines which still have their spent fuel onboard is accidents. Naval officers fear another major accident could occur, like what transpired on 10 August 1985 when an Echo II nuclear-powered submarine reactor exploded during a refueling at the Chazhma Bay shipyard. Another worry is that a decommissioned nuclear submarine could sink at dockside. On 29-30th May 1997, this happened when a decommissioned submarine sank at the submarine facilities in Kamchatka. Reportedly a vessel collided with the moored submarine, and it sank. The Russian Navy claimed all fuel had been offloaded from the submarine, and it posed no environmental hazard. However, such reports are not reassuring.

“The most acute problem today is that of the decommissioned submarines and the shore-side support facilities and maintenance ships. Little thought or planning had gone into what to do with retired submarines prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since 1991, a lot of thought has been devoted to this problem, but the absence of finances has meant serious environmental problems continue, and will probably continue for a decade or more to come. The Russian Navy and surrounding countries remain concerned that a major accident could ensue.

“In March 1993, after several years of revelations about the dumping of radioactive waste at sea, the Russian government released a White Paper describing some 30 years of the dumping of radioactive waste at sea. The so-called Yablokov report detailed how 18 damaged naval nuclear reactors and two internal reactor screen assemblies were dumped in the seas around the Soviet Union. Sixteen reactors were dumped in the Kara Sea and 2 in the Sea of Japan. One reactor screen assembly was dumped in the Kara Sea and one off Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the northern Pacific Ocean.

“Several scientific expeditions to the dump areas in the Arctic found local contamination from dumped materials. But there is no evidence of migration so far. However, all dump sites were not found and fully investigated.”

After reading various high-level reports, and looking out over what would appear to be a beautiful northern Pacific seascape from the hills above Petropavlovsk … I don’t think I’ll be buying second-home property here.

Bowermaster’s Adventures — Kamchatka, Russia

by Jon Bowermaster on

This land of volcanoes and earthquakes — the western frontier of the literary “Ring of Fire” — is still a month away from true spring. Dirty, crusted snow lies beneath the leafless trees and in the gutters along Petropavlovsk’s main streets, which already look pretty grim, lined as they are by Soviet-era buildings. The only hints of color in town are the red-and-yellow hot dog-beer-and-coffee stands across from Lenin Square and the colorfully painted walls of a local gym. Otherwise, from the bottle-strewn banks of the fishing harbor to the top of the hills looking out over Avachinskaya Bay, the operative description of this city at the tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula is … grey.

Long a place shrouded in secrecy, Kamchatka was until recently known to Westerners only as a closed military region or as a name on the Risk board. We are at the very edge of the Russian Far East, a region known locally as “the back of the beyond.” The seven hundred and fifty mile long peninsula is lined by a pair of mountain ranges – the Sredenny (Central) and Vostochny (Eastern) – and from the air looks like a big fish. The Kamchatka River fills the trough between the two ranges. Encircling the city are snow-capped volcanoes, nearly 300 dot the peninsula, a tenth still active. When I ask the first people I meet — two young journalism students, Victoria and Ivan – if they remember the last eruption they smile, wracking their memories.

“I think it was like two weeks ago,” says Victoria. “But they happen so often, it’s hard to be sure. And earthquakes, too. But we are used to them. Why do you think the buildings are so … solid?”

Three-quarters of the peninsula’s 400,000 people live in Petropavlovsk, the capital city founded by Russian explorer Vitus Bering and named after his two ships, the St. Peter and St. Paul. The Russians and Ukrainians here mostly came to work at its once-booming navy station; ten miles across the bay sits Russia’s second largest nuclear submarine base. The indigenous Itelmen and Koryaks are still mostly nomadic reindeer herders. Judging by the attire of the locals waiting in long lines at bus stops, the biggest imports are patent leather jackets and boots with spiked heels (for women) and camouflage (for men).

The peninsula is known for an amazing diversity and abundance of wildlife: Sable, ermine, Siberian bighorn (or snow) sheep, the Kamchatka brown bear, crab and, of course, salmon in large quantities. Today it’s said that Kamchatka’s industries can be divided into two categories: fishing and those that support fishing, though some are at risk of being over-fished. At the dock I eat thick slabs of brown bread slathered with red caviar.

As I munch at the dock I watch big fishing boats readying to head back out to sea. When I ask what they fish, the answer is simple: “Whales.”

“But isn’t whaling illegal?”

“Listen,” says a fisherman in blue rubber bibs hosing down the back ramp of one of the gunmetal grey boats. “I know in Alaska it is illegal to shoot even a bird. But here, this is Russia. Nothing is illegal.”

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Fish are ninety-three percent of Kamchatka’s exports, particularly salmon and king crab (though after walking the city for a day, I have to say it was very, very difficult to find either … or even a restaurant to ask for them. “Eating out is not popular,” admits the only guidebook reference to food I could find). Kamchatka’s biggest import is fuel, which in the recent past led to some trouble. I ask why there appear to be so many burned-out homes along the main hills. “About ten years ago we did not receive enough coal,” says a man drinking coffee across from Lenin Square. “People were using open fires to heat inside. Obviously there were some … problems.”

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1990 opened the region to the outside world and there is something of a tourist industry here, though small. A land still being born, thanks to the near-constant volcanic activity, Kamchatka can be a place of breathtaking beauty and unique wildlife; this afternoon when the sun pops out and the sky clears a perimeter lined with snow-capped mountains is revealed across the wind-swept bay.

There is a saying here which loosely translates as, “In the winter it’s not too cold, but in the summer it’s not very warm!” Pharmacologists are on record that a cup of fresh Kamchatka water drunk in the morning heals the liver and stomach, cleans the blood vessels and prohibits bacteria. Other scientific studies detail increased levels of radioactivity in both air and water, thanks to the decommissioning of nuclear subs taking place just across the bay. Which makes me somewhat reluctant to drink from its taps or, if I could find one, eat one of those giant king crabs.

The only Russian phrase I pick up during a day of wandering PK? “Kamchatka, ehto strannoe mesto” (It’s a strange place).

Sustainble Farming Program in Uganda Offers Hope and Help

by Kendra Bailey Morris on

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (BINP) in Uganda is well-known throughout the world as the home for nearly half of the world’s population of critically endangered mountain gorillas. However, gorillas are no longer the only entity on Uganda’s endangered list. Bwindi’s local people have also felt the brunt of years of illegal logging and other activities which have slowly degraded the area.

Fortunately, the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park was established as a national park in 1991, and was initially designed to protect both its treasured gorillas along with its precious and deteriorating forestland, and as of today, the program has been a great success. Yet, while the park itself has benefited from a surge in tourism (thousands of visitors pass through the park every year on pricey gorilla treks), Bwindi locals have not been able to reap much financial benefit from the increased tourism, which in turn, has caused considerable conflict amongst the community.

Much of this socioeconomic dichotomy has been contributed to revenue loss due to the procurement of food products designed for local lodges and restaurants coming from outside the area (as far as a ten hour drive away). Considering the most common livelihood for locals is subsistence farming, and that the area’s soil is extremely fertile, developing a farmer’s association where locals could gain cash income by supplying fruits, vegetables and other products to a growing tourism industry seemed a natural solution.

Thus, the Bwindi Advanced Market Grower’s Association (AMAGARA, which means ‘life”, in the local language Rukiga) was born, and it has been evolving ever since.

Situated only four kilometers from the BINP gate, visitors can get a firsthand glimpse at the association’s gardens, which boasts everything from fiery red chili’s to sweet honey (harvested from their own bee hives). Guests of AMAGARA can take a personal tour led by on-site team members which offers education on how the association operates and how a wide range of growing techniques are taught to local farmers. Cooking classes featuring the traditional cuisine of Uganda are also offered daily, and are led by the institute’s professionally trained chef, Moses, who shares his personal recipes and cooking tips, including a few rather interesting twists on classic dishes.

An on-site garden shop sells a wide selection of gifts including packaged honey and tea from Bwindi. Purchases from the garden shop directly support the work of AMAGARA as well as that of the local community.

For traveler’s looking for a complete African Mountain Gorilla safari, Volcano Safaris, a company that specializes in great ape ecotourism and who is a well-known leader in its industry, has recently partnered with AMAGARA. As part of their gorilla trekking safari, which already includes tracking in the BINP and lodge accommodations, guests can also tack on a visit to AMAGARA when staying at the Volcanoes Bwindi Eco-Lodge. The lodge, which overlooks the forest, features eight bandas and utilizes only local materials and solar energy. Meals are prepared on-site and highlight produce purchased directly from AMAGARA.

–Kendra