A holistic approach to sustainable tourism, it considers the environmental, economic and cultural impacts of travel—and aims to leave communities better than they were before.
Here are just three ways to experience it across Australia.
1. CHOOSE SUSTAINABLE ACCOMMODATION
Responsible accommodation has come a long way from the days when you'd leave a placard on your bed indicating you didn't want the sheets changed. Today's regenerative hotels and lodges aren't just saying goodbye to single-use plastics—they're giving back to the environments and communities they're based in. Take, for example, Emirates One&Only Wolgan Valley, a green resort in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. It's located within a 7,000-acre nature reserve but occupies just one percent of that space. The rest is dedicated to conservation, including restoring habitat that was once clear for farmland (and more recently, was affected by the 2019-2020 bushfires). To date, over 200,000 trees have been planted on the property, including by guests. Site rehabilitation is also a focus for Tasmania's Saffire Freycinet lodge. When it opened in 2010, the land—which was once the site of a caravan park—was degraded and eroded. Since then, it's undergone extensive revegetation, with over 30,000 native plants. It's also home to a free-range sanctuary for endangered Tasmanian devils—and with the support of guests, Saffire has raised $125,000 for research to prevent extinction of the iconic species.
2. BECOME A CITIZEN SCIENTIST
The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system, with 3,000 individual reefs that stretch for 2,300 kilometres off the coast of Queensland. Its size means that only five to 10 percent of the reef is regularly surveyed and an estimated 70 percent has never been documented. As a result, gaps in knowledge exist about the reef's health, including what's recovering from bleaching events and where high-value corals—responsible for providing new life to the rest of the reef—are located. But that may soon change, thanks to tourists with a conscious. At the Lizard Island Resort—the most northerly resort on the Great Barrier Reef and a Luxury Lodge of Australia— guests can meet marine biologists at the Australia Museum Lizard Island Research Station, where they'll learn how their research is supporting the reef's resilience. And from October to December 2022, snorkellers can even contribute to research by participating in the Great Reef Census, an attempt to survey the entire reef. It's just one of the citizen science projects taking place across the country. When you book the Mungo Outback Journey—a private group tour hosted by Echidna Walkabout Nature Tours in outback NSW —you'll have the chance to spot emus, kangaroos and pink cockatoos living amongst the red sand dunes of Lake Mungo. By recording the species you see, you'll help scientists determine their movements and conservation status over time. But if you're not a fan of paperwork and would prefer to get your hands dirty, Echidna Walkabout Nature Tour's Koala Recovery Experience may be for you. Over two or three days, you'll assist researchers in the Great Western Plains near Melbourne in replanting trees along critical watercourses, providing future habitat and food for koalas as bushfires and climate change forces them out of dry hills and into moisture-rich valleys.
Improving the Reefs' Resiliency
A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Great Barrier Reef is a thriving, vibrant ecosystem that's home to 600 types of coral, 1,625 types of fish, 133 varieties of sharks and rays, and more than 30 species of whales and dolphins. But like all reefs worldwide, it continues to face escalating climate challenges. The good news is that tourism has a critical role to play in improving our understanding of the reef and building its resiliency. The Great Reef Census is just one of the ways tourists can help. Started by Earth Hour founder Andy Ridley in 2020, the annual event aims to survey the entire Great Barrier Reef. (Until now, 70 percent of the reef has never been surveyed and only about 10 percent is regularly monitored.) When you board the boat of a participating tour operator between the months of October and December, you'll have the opportunity to capture images and data that will help contribute to scientists' understanding and management of the reef. But even if you visit outside those windows of time, you can help. Year-round, visitors are invited to contribute findings to the Eye on the Reef app, which is used by the Great Barrier Marine Park Authority to monitor the reef's health and trigger management actions. No experience is necessary for either program—all that's needed is the desire to protect this incredible ecosystem for future generations.
3. SUPPORT THE PRESERVATION OF AN ANCIENT CULTURE
Regenerative tourism isn't just about conserving environments—it's also about preserving cultural traditions. There's arguably no better example of this than Discover Aboriginal Experiences, a collection of over 185 Aboriginalled tours that celebrate the oldest living culture on earth. On a visit to Kununurra's Waringarri Aboriginal Arts in Western Australia's East Kimberley region, you'll learn how the arts centre provides a space for Miriwoong artists to pass on their culture and language, which has fewer than 20 fluent speakers remaining, on to future generations. But you don't always have to venture to a remote location to see evidence of the Indigenous heritage that's shaped the Australian landscape for 60,000 years. In Sydney, join a walking tour in the Rocks with Dreamtime Southern X. While visitors may associate the popular tourist precinct with the nearby Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the area also reverberates with spiritual significance for the Eora people, who made their home here. They practiced seasonal food gathering, which you'll learn more about as you taste bush tucker growing in city gardens and visit hidden sacred sites. At its most basic, it's a cultural tour, but dive a little deeper and you'll discover that it's just one of the tour operators rewriting how we do tourism.
A Changing Landscape
During Australia's 2019-2020 bushfires, Kangaroo Island—long a destination for wildlife enthusiasts—was adversely affected. But in the two years since, it's demonstrated incredible resiliency. Today, the island is awash in fresh green growth. Although the increasing severity and frequency of bushfires is sounding alarm bells, fire has been a natural part of the Australian landscape for thousands of years. It's necessary for regrowth; without it, biodiversity suffers. And right now, visitors to Kangaroo Island have the unique opportunity to learn more about bushfire ecology and witness this regeneration in action. While recovery is still underway, visitors will have a good chance of seeing koalas, Australian sea lions, tammar wallabies and wedge-tailed eagles. If you're lucky, you may also spot more elusive species, such as short-beaked echidnas or platypus. And, of course, if you want to see a kangaroo, rest assured that you've come to the right place.