What sustainable tourism means to us
- Leaving no trace and educating our guests about wilderness best practices
- Giving back to our local communities and supporting local businesses
- Minimising energy usage and waste, and then reducing, reusing and recycling
- Minimising single plastic usage
- Tracking and offsetting carbon emissions
- Looking after our amazing staff
Certification
We are very proud to have achieved Advance Tourism Eco Certification with EcoTourism Australia. We love the environment we work and play in and want to share it, at its very best, with our guests and that means looking after our natural world.
This certification not only shows our guests how serious we are in that mission, the annual audit ensures we continue best practice while providing ecotourism experiences with minimal impact on the environment.
2018/19 activities
- Supported Friends of Melaleuca, Friends of Orange-bellied Parrot and Save the Devil Foundation.
- Offset our Carbon Emissions (including your flights with us) with Offset my Emissions on a project to conserve Tasmania’s iconic native forests in the Central Highlands.
- Put in solar power at base.
- Provided over $2,000 of vouchers to local community groups.
- Worked on school programs introducing over 300 children to sea kayaking – sharing with them the joy of being in the natural environment. They are our future.
Reducing carbon emissions
These are just some of the steps we’re taking to reduce our carbon emissions:
- On all our tours we ask guests to separate their waste for recycling and composting and bring all food waste home where it is fed to our chickens or composted for the veggie patch.
- Use recycled products where possible.
- Introduced soft plastic recycling.
- Use bicycles for city transport when possible.
- Ensure all our vehicles are serviced regularly to maintain optimum fuel efficiency.
Encouraging our guests to tackle climate change
At Roaring 40°s Kayaking we believe each person can make a difference by introducing environmental practices into our everyday life. These can include:
- Stop using bottled water (we encourage our guests to bring a reusable water bottle on all our trips)
- Use less electricity by turning off appliances when not in use
- Buying energy efficient devices
- Drive less - use a bicycle or car pool
- Recycle
- Buy fresh local produce
- Save water
- Print less
- Don't use single use plastic.
When travelling we ask our guests to ensure these practices are maintained away from home. We recommend using biodegradable soaps and detergents and these are essential on our expeditions trips (or just swim in the sea!).
We encourage our guests to choose to support tour operators who have EcoTourism Certification which allows trvellers to identify and support tourism products which have minimal impact on the environment.
We also encourage our guests to offset their travel emissions. Two great sites to work out your carbon emissions are Carbon Neutral and Carbon Footprint.
Other great sites we recommend are:
- Ecotourism Australia Green Travel Guide
- Climate Friendly
- Tasmanian Land Conservancy
- Offset My Emissions
Each year we strive to make more improvements to our sustainability and decrease our impacts on our planet. For our 2019/20 season we are working with our suppliers to decrease waste and we are hoping to work with the Southwest Cleanup Group to help pickup rubbish washed onto the remote Southwest beaches.
When you live and work and play in a natural environment as spectacular as our island state, wanting to care for this place comes easily. We work hard to ensure our impact is as little as possible, to help others in conservation and to explain and share our ethos as widely as possible, making it easy for everyone to play a part, no matter how small. We all share this amazing planet.
June 2019