We're aiming to showcase sustainable tourism on the Murray River and the Mallee. This area of the website will develop and evolve as support and information grow.

Mildura Visitor Centre recycled posters to bags

Here's a great idea and thumbs up to the Mildura Visitor Information Centre. Like all visitor centres, they received hundreds of posters promoting local and regional events and functions. Naturally not all these posters can be used and in the past many posters would have been disposed of in the recycling.

The visitor centre staff are now converting these posters into visitor bags. When a visitor purchases a souvenir at the centre they'll give you a pre-made recycled poster bag and place your purchase inside. Visitors just love it because its smart recycling and the visitor also takes away a bit more of the town and region. Well done to the staff of the Mildura Visitor Information Centre.

Waikerie Caravan Park Gumnut Award

The Waikerie Caravan Park has recently achieved Bronze level certification after only two months under new management.

The Gumnut Awards are a certification program for holiday and residential parks that recognises a demonstrated commitment to environmental sustainability and social responsibility.

Actively adopted by parks all over Australia, who show dedication to the needs of park visitors, their staff, local residents and the general community, while also looking out for our future by respecting and improving the environment.

Portee Station Wombat Conservation Project

Wombat Awareness Organisation, Blanchetown

For just $40 you can buy an acre of wombat land just out from Blanchetown, South Australia. Wombat Awareness Organisation, working in conjunction with Wombat Protection Society of Australia (WPSA) and the Bob Irwin Wildlife Fund, to secure property for Southern Hairy Nosed Wombat conservation.

Please donate today and help us secure a 13 000 acre portion of Portee Station to protect its huge resident wombat population and ensure the continuation of the only rescue and rehabilitation program for the Southern Hairy Nosed Wombat (South Australia's State Emblem).

Read more at welovethiscountry.com.au

Solar Powered Houseboats in Mildura

Houseboat Adventures, Mildura

Adventure Houseboats are committed to providing green energy alternatives. Adventure Houseboats, working in conjunction with Turner Marine, have consulted & liaised with BPsolar to develop a system that will transform the way we look at houseboat power generation.

Our unique 240 volt automatic generation system is supported by a high output solar panel bank, providing 24 hour a day power, with reduced fuel cost and lower emissions. We are always looking at new ways to improve energy efficiency, and our latest boat Advantage 1, launched in February 2009 is a revolution in its class.

Advantage 1 on average is using less than half the fuel of a standard automatic power generation system, greatly reducing our environmental footprint.

Read Sydney Morning Herald article on Houseboat Adventures

Proudly supported by

Sustainable Tourism Resources

Julie Taylor Mills assisted us with a list of resources which should be useful for a sustainable tourism future.

This is reasonably comprehensive – and should give you a good view of options both nationally and internationally. Currently carbon management via offsetting is still embryonic in development both in Australia and even globally. Most projects to date have been in reaforestation.

1) Australia

The best place to find out what projects are on offer in Australia is via a website developed by RMIT in Melbourne and the Victorian Government EPA with input from Landcare. The Federal Government is accrediting it at the moment. So in the meantime all the existing projects are in the reaforestation, methane, renewable energy space.

• Carbon Offset Guide : http://www.carbonoffsetguide.com.au
• List of Carbon Brokers

Two of the key offset providers in the Australian market are the following:

• CO2 Australia : http://www.co2australia.com.au
• Climate Friendly : https://climatefriendly.com/projects

The first company replants mallee across salt affected and drought prone areas of Australia. The latter company provides a range of offsets.

2) Internationally

If you want to offer offsets for projects beyond Australia a good place to start is this website, and some of the projects have social benefits as well as environmental benefits:

• Cleaner Climate : http://www.cleanerclimate.com/projects/project-locations

3) Standards

If after all this you want to understand more about how offsetting standards are developed and how projects are rated/legitimized, here are several websites which will give you a better sense of what carbon offsetting is setting out to achieve, and how projects are regulated. Gold Standards Carbon Credits is the forerunner in this process – developed out of concern about how to assess whether a project was legitimate or not. CCB Standards has arisen as globally there has been demand for carbon offsetting to address social outcomes as well as environmental outcomes.

• Gold Standards Carbon Credits : http://www.cdmgoldstandard.org/
• CCB Standards : http://www.climate-standards.org/