Carbon Credit Trees Planted On Aucklands Eco-tour Farm

The first lot of Carbon Credit Native Trees were planted in the Coast to Coast Tours Forest Reserve recently. This 100-acre, historic Auckland farm, is where tourists get the opportunity to have their own tree growing in New Zealand from purchasing and planting a tree to offset the emissions from this day tour. In doing so, it is making this tour a very sustainable, carbon neutral operation, and one which is unique to Auckland.
Objective of owner/hosts Donna & Stuart Hamilton was for tourists to receive more of a visitor experience when buying carbon credits, compared with the usual ‘over-the-counter’ method.
“It’s all very well paying another company for your carbon equivalent offset”, say the Hamilton’s, “but the tourist is not directly involved, (other than paying their money)”. Becoming members of T.I.E.S. (The International Ecotourism Society), also brought into the equation the whole concept of what a ‘true’ Eco-tour actually consists of.
Elements of Nature, Culture, Conservation and Environmental sustainability are baseline in the Eco-tour, but threaded throughout this, is that of local operation, and re-direction of profits back into the local community.
After gaining these insights, the Hamilton’s compared New Zealand Eco-tours with those from overseas, and were concerned to see in New Zealand just how little emphasis was placed on a company to see if it operated locally, (especially when quality organisations rated these New Zealand Eco-tours). So, the couple set about designing their own project that their tourists could be part of. All parts of Coast to Coast’s operation have a local nature, with the trees also sourced locally.
Not every tourist buys a tree; it is entirely over to them, with no pressure to do so either. At present about 65% of tours see a tree planted into the farm’s Forest Reserve.
“People are interested to learn about sequestration, and excited to plant a tree. Later their tree (which gets a numbered tag), is uploaded onto our website, with updates made at least annually”, say the Hamilton’s.
In 2008, to celebrate their ‘New Product’ of Native tree planting, at the NZ Tourism event TRENZ, the company donated a tree to each Buyer appointment they secured; (around 45 trees in total). Always, as part of the Coast to Coast Tours Shore Excursion tours, a complimentary tree is included for a group planting, (such as the Janet Lanterman, Cruise Specialists group).
“It’s a nice inclusion to make for our cruise boat groups and there are no other tours just 40 minutes from the heart of downtown Auckland where this hands-on experience can be done. Already we are onto tree tags C, and with 100 tags in a ‘run’ it’s great to see the trees being planted. It’s not only proving popular, but it’s something that will be benefitting (in years to come), the whole local community, as all the trees are fully protected by NZ Government Law. It’s certainly cementing our sense of sustainability and custodianship of the area where we live”, the Hamilton’s say.