Regenerative Travel

Hassie and his wife Jo were planting native trees to regenerate their property long before it became a fashionable business ethic. We are committed to the preservation of our natural environment for generations to come.

With a goal to become carbon neutral, in 2008, we commissioned Canopy Australia to measure our business’s environmental footprint. We then knew how many trees we needed to plant each year on our property to offset our emissions.

From 2008 to 2021, we were the only tour operator in Australia to offset our carbon footprint internally. We achieved this through our Future Forest Revegetation Program at our property, Coodlie Park Farm Retreat. This program saw us regenerate 1.2 hectares of native vegetation each year through seed collecting, propagation and replanting. 

In September 2021, we sold Coodlie Park and are in the process of seeking new land in Port Lincoln to replicate our Future Forest Revegetation Program and launch other conservation projects in the area in partnership with the Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board.

We are proud of what we have achieved in the past through our regenerative replanting programs to offset our carbon. But we want to take this to the next level with our vision to become a leader in Regenerative Tourism in Australia. 

In November 2021 Hassie and his Business Development Manager, Anna, completed a course called the ‘Regeneration Roadmap’ through Melbourne based Regeneration Projects. This has given us the knowledge and tools to build our ‘Five Year Regeneration Action Plan’ which we will launch in the first half of 2022. This is not box-ticking. We are committed to investing in the regeneration of our untamed regions, so they stay pristine and wild for generations to come.

We will align our initiatives with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The SGD’s we will focus on are;

We will measure and communicate our regenerative travel goal progress publicly and hope that inspires others to join #generationrestoration with us. Stay tuned!

In September 2021, we launched the 6 Day Eyre Peninsula and Flinders Ranges Eco-Tour, our first to include formal conservation volunteering. Passengers on this tour participate in critical koala conservation work at Mikkira Station, home to nearly 300 wild koalas. Depending on the time of year, we will spend the afternoon removing weeds, or collecting, propagating or planting manna gum tree seeds. These trees are critical habitat for the koalas at Mikkira Station, and our partnership with land management and conservation groups will hopefully make a difference in their protection.

This is the first tour of many more to come that includes conservation volunteering elements allowing travellers to create positive change through purposeful travel. 

Read Eco-Tourism Australia’s article about this tour.

We continue to invest in and implement initiatives to offset our carbon footprint and educate others through our Environmental Education Program for school and community groups. In addition, we have built solid partnerships over the past decade with Canopy Australia, Greening Australia and the Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board.

We are proud of our partnership with the Eyre Peninsula NRM Board as a key supporter of their nationally accredited Wild Eyre Landscape Conservation Project. This was an original initiative for Indigenous people to protect and restore the natural habitats and threatened species on the West Coast of South Australia. The program utilised Coodlie Park for three years, with the running of consultative meetings and workshops with Indigenous staff who were working with local youth to collect seeds from our property for future regrowth.