Neutralise your “carbon footprint” — Grow a Tree

Grow A Tree Starter Pack

Neutralising one’s “car­bon foot­print” seems to be the catch­phrase of 2009. What does this mean exactly? Well the basic idea is to plant a tree to neg­ate the effects of all of the car­bon emis­sions we are respons­ible for, in our daily lives. The rule of thumb is:

“For every 5000 km you travel in a car or for every 5 hours you spend on a plane, you should plant 1 tree. If you never travel in a car or a plane, you should plant 10 trees to neut­ral­ize the effects of your household.”

So, now that you know what to do, how and where can you do it? Continued

How to Go Green

A solar collector

The time is NOW, the col­our is GREEN and the ques­tion is: "What are you doing to save our Planet?" Eco liv­ing is on everybody's lips and if it isn't, it should be! Recycling, con­ser­va­tion and renew­able energy have been around for many years.

Fossils fuels are pol­lut­ing our envir­on­ment and altern­at­ive energy sources are here! Many estab­lish­ments are already sav­ing the planet 1 kilo­watt hour at a time by using vari­ous energy sav­ing ranges, which are becom­ing increas­ingly afford­able and avail­able in South Africa and the world over. Continued

South Africa Eco-Friendly Accommodations

Booking eco-friendly accom­mod­a­tion in South Africa doesn’t mean you have to sac­ri­fice on com­fort (though South Africa does offer a num­ber of camp­ing options should you want to "rough it").

More and more estab­lish­ments in South Africa are adopt­ing eco-friendly prin­ciples on vary­ing scales. Whether sub­scrib­ing to “green val­ues”, “sus­tain­able or respons­ible tour­ism” or going the whole “eco-tourism” hog, you can sup­port accom­mod­a­tion estab­lish­ments that are try­ing to make a dif­fer­ence here in South Africa. Continued

Eco-Friendly Activities in Cape Town and the Western Cape

We start our eco-tour of South Africa in Cape Town, voted one of the world's top 10 green cit­ies — the US think tank Ethisphere Institute (http://ethisphere.com/) named Cape Town as a centre of global sus­tain­ab­il­ity. The "Mother City", so blessed with nat­ural beauty, offers a mul­ti­tude of out­door activ­it­ies which can be enjoyed guilt-free. Hike Table Mountain, enjoy the Cape's beaches, or go shop­ping. Yes, I did say shop­ping in an art­icle about eco-tourism … Continued

Are you a "Responsible" Traveller?

Eco-Tourism

Are you a respons­ible trav­el­ler? Believe in trav­el­ling green?
When trav­el­ling in South Africa, you can travel respons­ibly, travel green and give back to com­munit­ies, by choos­ing pro­viders who sub­scribe to the ethos of eco-tourism (see: What is Eco-Tourism?).

How to Travel Green:

• book eco-friendly accom­mod­a­tions
• get around responsibly
  • trains offer eco­nom­ical travel with a lower car­bon foot­print than a plane or car ... Continued

What is Eco-Tourism?

Ecological tour­ism or eco-tourism is a highly pop­u­lar term and pos­sibly one of the most mis­used in the travel industry. It should describe travel to fra­gile areas where the fauna, flora and cul­tural her­it­age are the main reas­ons for travel.

Essentially eco-tourism pro­tects and empowers local people and nat­ural areas, and at the same time provides vis­it­ors with a unique, but low impact experience.

The Ecotourism Society defines eco-tourism as 'respons­ible travel to nat­ural areas, which con­serves the envir­on­ment and improves the wel­fare of the local people'. Essentially eco-tourism should unite con­ser­va­tion, com­munit­ies and sus­tain­able travel.

However, it can get a little con­fus­ing. There are a hand­ful of sim­ilar terms used to describe this type of travel, like 'adven­ture travel', 'sus­tain­able tour­ism', 'respons­ible tour­ism', and 'green travel'. Continued

Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability at Mosaic Farm

Mosaic Farm

"The term 'green' cer­tainly can be mis­used", says Kathryn Johnson of Mosaic Farm, one of the few true eco-tourism estab­lish­ments in South Africa. Surrounded by the whale watch­ing para­dise of Walker Bay Beach and the majestic Overberg Mountains, Mosaic Farm (near Stanford) per­fectly blends the glor­ies of nature with fine coun­try liv­ing and superb South African cuisine and wine.

"Many busi­nesses claim eco-friendliness", con­tin­ues Kathryn. "It’s a term often used very loosely as a mar­ket­ing man­tra, but without fol­low­ing the fun­da­ment­als of envir­on­mental integ­rity, social justice and eco­nomic devel­op­ment, claims can be empty." Continued

Teniqua Treetops in the Forest Canopy

Teniqua Treetops

It is not often that one is invited to sleep, eat and wash high up in a wild, indi­gen­ous forest can­opy, sur­roun­ded by moun­tains, bird song, but­ter­flies and, well not much else really. But the ten­ted tree house resort set in the foot­hills of the Outeniqua Mountains right in the heart of the Garden Route does just that.

Not only does this pretty, ten­ted tree­house des­tin­a­tion lie roughly 23 kilo­metres out­side of the equally attract­ive vil­lage of Sedgefield, but by all accounts a visit here is 'quietly life-changing'. It is also one of few truly eco-friendly ven­ues. Continued

Green is the new Black ...

Leave only footprints

Green is the new black. No, really; we’re recyc­ling, driv­ing hybrid cars and gen­er­ally try­ing to be intel­li­gent enough not to melt the polar ice caps or widen the hole in the ozone layer. So why not travel green as well?

Eco-tourism is low impact travel, usu­ally to pro­tec­ted areas in which flora, fauna and cul­tural her­it­age are the main attrac­tions. Its focus is on edu­cat­ing the eco­lo­gic­ally con­scious trav­el­ler and min­im­ising the neg­at­ive aspects of con­ven­tional tour­ism, while provid­ing fund­ing for con­ser­va­tion ini­ti­at­ives and eco­nomic oppor­tun­it­ies for local communities.

Of course, it’s not all ser­i­ous… mostly eco-tourism is about hav­ing a good old bush­whack­ing fun time in nature. And with South Africa’s picture-perfect land­scapes and status as the third most bio-diverse coun­try in the world, it’s fast becom­ing one hot des­tin­a­tion for eco-tourists. And with good reason … Continued