Hosted and supported by Ravi and Rachel, Red Earth is a family of boutique properties that are committed to sustaining the community and the environment around them. Red Earth offers its guests the unique opportunity to enjoy a holiday that is responsible and entirely guilt-free.
At Red Earth, we work in consonance with the locals, ensuring they come first. Instead of competing with them, we enhance their skills and produce, prioritising the local economy. We have also trained and absorbed them into our workforce across our properties.
At Red Earth, we work in consonance with the locals, ensuring they come first. Instead of competing with them, we enhance their skills and produce, prioritising the local economy. We have also trained and absorbed them into our workforce across our properties.
96% of our workforce remain strictly local - including people from the indigenous tribes. They are trained and given support to join our workforce and gradually move up the ladder to take on leadership roles.
Vegetables, milk, poultry and fish are sourced locally from the local farming and fishing communities to boost the local economy. They are encouraged to be organic, and shortly, we will try and get them certified.
Working closely with the NGO Sambramma, Red Earth helps revive dying folk art, tribal dance and music forms by giving a platform to such communities - to perform, cook and preserve their way of life.
We support and help run the Nilgiris Wayanad Tribal Welfare Society (NWTWS), an NGO working in the field of health, education and community development in the forested areas of the Nilgiris in Wayanad. We run a school for 300 tribal children, a 20 bedded hospital and an ambulance to make medical care accessible to tribes living in remote areas. Through the years, several organisations like Damien Foundation India Trust, Mar Munning Trust and Village Service Trust from UK and Sportsforall Foundation in Australia have collaborated and helped us. The state of Tamil Nadu also supports us in many ways.
Ravi uses his experience in Papua New Guinea as a specialist gourmet coffee and tea planter to educate local villagers towards efficient planting/farming methods. In an effort to instil pride in their surroundings, local children are regularly taken on safaris.
Gift Shops at Red Earth are stocked with products created at organisations run for women or differently-abled.
Village tours are organised every day at 11 am to allow our guests to interact with the locals.
Regular medical camps are organised in partnership with the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (www.svym.org).
In addition to a regular supply of books, pencils and other school stationery being provided to the children of Badannekuppe and Hosmalla village, we help in providing staff to our local schools to teach English. Red Earth pays three English teachers as the village schools have no English teacher, stemming the migration of children from Government schools to below-par expensive private schools.
Regular anti-plastic campaigns are organised for students at the local schools adopted by Red Earth.
In addition to helping the local community, we also take care of our staff. We have opened bank accounts, helped them build houses and toilets, bought motorcycles and ensured that their children get admitted into good schools. All our staff are covered under the Insurance and Provident Fund.
Central to Red Earth’s cause of responsible tourism is environmental protection. All our decisions revolve around allowing the environment to thrive by curbing harmful activities and consciously taking up activities that help foster its sustenance.
Every Red Earth resort has been built with the utmost concern for the environment.
1. All construction in Red Earth Kabini is made out of red mud from the site (rammed earth construction) with minimum use of steel and cement. Natural grass has been used as roofing as opposed to concrete.
The flooring in Kabini is made from a combination of Terracotta tiles and handmade glass tiles from Karaikudi in Tamil Nadu.
2. Ravi has planted various species of fruiting and flowering trees around our resorts, creating a rich biosphere that sees almost 100 species of birds, butterflies, and other insects
Apiaries have been created across resorts to provide fresh organic honey to our guests.
Our menu is based on the harvest of the day, consisting of locally-sourced and in-house grown fruits and vegetables. We steer clear of MSG, artificial food colouring, soda and industrial refrigerators.
3. Fingerlings from the fisheries department have been introduced into our two lakes in Red Earth Kabini, considerably reducing our dependence on the Kabini Lakes for fish.
Solar power is harnessed to power our water heaters. Additionally, hot water timings are restricted to conserve energy.
4. Lighting in all Red Earth resorts is powered by LED bulbs. Disposing of septic tanks, wastewater in every Red Earth resort is treated and recycled to irrigate our gardens. An organic Dewats filtration system acts as the in-house water treatment plant.
5. All our waste is segregated. While the organic and kitchen waste is sent to a piggery Red Earth helped set up, all plastic and plastic bottles are collected by a recycler every day. The wet waste is composted with the help of the black soldier fly, which breaks down the organic substrates, returning the nutrients to the soil.
All our properties are plastic, pesticide and chemical-free.
All our shampoos and soaps are organic, handmade and bottled in recycled plastic.
Red Earth complies with the rules and laws of the land in letter and spirit.
