4 minute read
It's Easy Being Green
With climate change increasingly in the spotlight, many travellers are becoming more and more concerned about how much of a carbon footprint their holidays are creating. Thankfully, the Trees for Travellers initiative means you can offset that carbon, help restore native forests, and travel with peace of mind when visiting the Chatham Islands.
A joint initiative by Henga Lodge and Hokotehi Moriori Trust, Trees for Travellers not only encourages Chatham Island visitors to support sustainable tourism operators, but it is also a unique opportunity to give back to the whenua, combat carbon omissions and nourish the land for the future. Bernadette Lim, manager of Henga Lodge, says the idea grew organically via conversation amongst her team and the Trust.
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“We’d seen programmes with people volunteering to plant trees for the Department of Conservation,” Bernadette says, “and we knew that we wanted to help bring back trees to the island. The idea grew from that and from wanting to have a point of difference that would also involve our guests at Henga Lodge. What people love about the lodge is how relaxing it is, and the great views of the land; this seemed a great way to involve them in that land. When you visit a small community, being able to put something back that will last for generations is pretty memorable.”
The concept is simple. Visitors to the lodge are given the option of purchasing a welcome pack that includes a $10 donation that will be used by Hokotehi Moriori Trust to plant a native tree in one of their local reserves. “Guests will go home not only having an amazing holiday on the Chatham Islands,” says Bernadette, “but also knowing they have made a difference to the future of our special place and helped to offset the carbon footprint that comes with all travel.”
Heather Beaton of Hokotehi Moriori Trust says that while it was originally planned that visitors could plant ‘their’ tree themselves, both the Trust and Henga Lodge wanted to make sure the trees would thrive, and that meant that they had to be planted at certain times of the year – which of course didn’t always coincide with each and every visitors holiday schedule!
“We know that a lot of people would like to get out and plant the tree themselves – especially the young ones – but we didn’t want this to be just a token thing,” Heather says, “we wanted this to play a genuine role in helping us to reforest parts of the island. So while visitors won’t actually be putting the trees in the ground themselves, they will know that a tree in the reserve has been planted in their name and that it will be there for generations to come.”
Large parts of the island were cleared for farming in years gone by, and in addition to changing the physical appearance of the landscape this also had an immense impact on birdlife. The Trees for Travellers scheme hopes to go some way to redressing this, with a variety of native trees being included in the planting plan, including kōpi (similar to the New Zealand Karaka), hakapiri, karamu, hokotaka, and matipo. The Hokotehi Moriori Trust established a nursery at Henga in 2010 and have a commitment in the coming years to plant up to 2000 hectares of land in native forest in line with the Trust’s vision of ‘re-cloaking’ the land. The Trust also employs a team of skilled bio-diversity rangers who undertake the project work and care for the trees.
As part of the Henga Lodge Welcome Pack visitors also receive a certificate in recognition of their donation and support – and some locally made souvenirs to boot. “We’ve made a commitment to sustainability,” says Bernadette, “so we didn’t want to be importing plastic trinkets and giving those away. Instead we are giving visitors something purposeful and real to take away with them, while helping our island environment and local community at the same time. The Chatham Islands is an inspiring place to visit, with a unique landscape, history, culture and birdlife, so it is only natural to offer our guests at Henga Lodge a unique visitor experience and the Trees for Travellers scheme is now a big part of that. And it will continue to be a big part of that well into the future.”
