Friday's Feature!

"~ Mandip’s hobby has become a way of life ~"

 

True to type for someone basically busy having fun haring up or down mountain sides or bungee jumping. Mandip Singh Soin ‘accidentally’ stumbled upon a vocation. Considering his BA degree in history from Delhi’s St. Stephens College was to send him to the civil services, his life took a U turn when after graduation, with only a couple of hundred dollars in his pocket, he took a year off to travel the world.

A hobby started at the age of 14, travel, trekking, skiing, adventure sports, became a way of life: Mandip returned to open Ibex Expeditions Private Limited in 1979. The ‘nature’ of business: adventure holidays, special interest journeys and eco tours in India. Twenty years on, Mandip has a lot to boast about. Ibex was presented the 1999 Green Globe Distinction Award (the highest category) for outstanding environmental achievements at the worlds’ largest travel fair in Berlin, the ITB (Internationale Tourismus Bourse). ‘Environmental awareness is a personal thing. Good intentions aren’t enough, we must be measured by our actions, says Mandip wryly. ‘Little things count, like closing the tap while we brush our teeth.’ Mandip himself became environmentally aware during an expedition to the North Pole, supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). ‘In a camp based 80 degrees north in the Canadian Arctic, we studied the hole caused by the depletion of the ozone layer, did snow sampling and understood how nature was being violated’, he reminisces.

The experience ensured that he set high standard for environment management in his company: recycled, handmade paper, eco-friendly jute bags, and porters to carry back all non-bio-degradable items from Himalayan camps. Solar lanterns and cookers are used instead of firewood; even toilet tents are away from natural water bodies.

Of course, environmentalists say tourism itself damages the ecology but Mandip feels dogmatism is no answer. ‘Tourism can’t be wished away’, he asserts forthrightly. ‘it is slated to be the largest industry by the turn of the century. Responsible tourism is the only way we can deal with the adverse environmental fallout of this.’ Looking at him, very much at ease in khaki chinos, military green sleeveless jacket and an earth shade shirt, it’s clear, nature is his business.

Written by Shalini Singh for The Economic Times, 21^st March 1999.  

Image and Text courtesy The Economic Times.