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Protecting Our Future

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

We operate in some of the world’s most pristine and beautiful wilderness environments around the world. We have an exceptional record of successfully utilising minimum-impact policies and procedures to ensure that our adventure activities’ wilderness and environmental values that inspire us are undiminished.

Our passion for the wilderness and outdoors is at the core of our values; we are informed and guided by this, ensuring that everything we do is carefully managed for environmental sustainability. We invite you to experience the wilderness and outdoors with us so that you can experience the personal transformation that nature can bring, yet be assured that you will not be transforming nature. Our environmental policies, together with your help and cooperation, will ensure that we can safeguard the pristine wilderness areas where we operate adventure activities for future generations.

How Are We Reducing Our Impact

Our Operations:

In the office in New South Wales, Peak Potential Adventures will endeavour to recycle all recyclable rubbish and only use the minimum consumable items. We only use 100% recycled copy paper and are focusing on eventually becoming a 100% paperless office. We no longer create and use hard copy adventure brochures or fact sheets. We are investing considerable time and money into our website and technology to ensure that all information related to our adventures is readily accessible through a computer or handheld mobile device in a responsive and readable manner. We will keep our consumption of paper, water, and power to an absolute minimum as part of our operation. We will keep our vehicles serviced and running smoothly, thus reducing fuel consumption and harmful emissions. We will also use high-grade fuel to run our vehicle to ensure cleaner engine combustion. We recently introduced an initiative on our Six Foot Track trek to replace the use of plastic and disposable styrofoam cups with ceramic mugs.

Taking in the views at Cape Hauy on the Three Capes Track

Our Adventure Guides:

In the field, our adventure guides will be aware of the environmental impact they and their group will have when travelling through any wilderness or outdoor environment. As a result, they will be able to teach team members minimum environmental impact travel techniques so that irreversible damage can be prevented to the surrounding wilderness environment. In particular, leaders will be familiar with the minimal impact bushwalking guidelines and ‘Adventure Activity Standards’ published by the Outdoor Recreation Industry Council (ORIC) NSW and will be an expert at putting these into practice and adapting them for activities other than bushwalking.

Leadership:

Leaders will be ‘purists’ in their approach to the environment in general and these guidelines in particular and will always seek to improve their own and their participant’s environmental performance. Leaders will be able to discuss environmental issues in a sensitive non-combative way, thus introducing participants to what may be new and challenging ideas. The aim is to engage participants in taking responsibility for their environmental actions on the adventure and following it. Our expedition leaders will encourage and promote an understanding of local conservation through our adventures. This will be achieved by interpreting natural and historical values and ensuring our presence does not affect historic, Aboriginal and archaeological locations.

The beautiful forests on the Overland Track in Tasmania

The Leave No Trace Seven Principles

“Prior planning prevents poor performance.”
Anonymous

“Good planning is living the experience in advance.”
Sir Edmund Hillary

Plan ahead by considering your goals and those of your group. Prepare by gathering local information, communicating expectations, and acquiring the technical skills, first aid knowledge, and equipment to make the trip a success. Build Leave No Trace into your plans by picking an appropriate destination for your group and allowing plenty of time to travel and camp.

Be prepared to sit tight or turn back if you sense danger or sustain an injury. That way, you won’t have to abandon Leave No Trace techniques for the sake of safety. For instance, poor planning or disregard for weather conditions can transform an easy bushwalk into a risky encounter with extremes in temperatures. Cold and wet or suffering from heat stress, it’s tempting to think that the impacts of cutting branches for shade or shelters are justifiable.

Prevention by obtaining knowledge ahead of time is often an easier solution.

“The notion that [outdoor] recreation has no environmental impacts is no longer tenable.”
Curtis H. Flather and H. Ken Cordell

What effect does a footstep have?

The answer is, it depends.

A footstep means different things to a young tree and meadow grass, to leaf litter and fragile soil, to a gravelly river bank and rain forest moss. Unfortunately, trampling causes vegetation damage and soil erosion in virtually every environment. A recovery that takes a year in some environments might take 25 years in others.

Other impacts are also possible. Most soils contain animals that live or feed on decaying plants. Trampling destroys habitat for insects, earthworms, molluscs, and snails, as well as the fungi that fertilise the soil and help make re-growth possible. Vegetation protects underlying soils. Once plant growth is destroyed, erosion can continue with or without further use. In general, wherever you

travel and camp, use surfaces that are resistant to impacts such as rock outcrops, sand, gravel, dry grasses, snow, and water.

Avoid non-durable surfaces such as soft plants, riparian zones, muddy sites, and fragile soil layers. When travelling along a shoreline, hike on durable surfaces and spread out. Along stretches of coastline where there are no designated trails, hiking at low tide is generally best because the hard sand, gravel, or rock of the intertidal zone (the area between the highest and lowest tides) is exposed. In this area, be careful to avoid crushing intertidal life such as mussels and barnacles. Hiking at high tide usually causes greater impact because the higher water level may force you to walk in fragile sand dunes or vulnerable coastal vegetation.

Concentrate use in popular areas In popular areas, aim to concentrate use on tracks, established campsites, and other developed sites such as trailheads and picnic areas.

Concentrating use in these areas and, if necessary, on the surfaces mentioned earlier, will minimise disturbances to soils and vegetation. Stay on designated tracks.

“Cleanliness is next to godliness.”
Anonymous

“Pack it in, pack it out”
is a familiar mantra to seasoned travellers.

Any user of recreation lands has a responsibility to clean up before he or she leaves. Inspect your campsite and rest areas for rubbish or spilt foods. Pack out all rubbish and kitchen waste, including leftover food.

Plan meals to avoid generating messy, smelly rubbish. It is critical to wildlife that we pack out kitchen waste, such as bacon grease and leftovers. Don’t count on a fire to dispose of it. Rubbish that is half-

burned or buried will attract animals and make a site unattractive to other visitors. Overlooked rubbish is litter, and litter is not only ugly — it can also be deadly.

Animals scavenging a meal from a tasty smelling morsel can ingest bits of dropped food packaging damaging their digestive system. Plastic six-pack holders and plastic bags kill shorebirds, sea turtles and other marine mammals including whales. Fishing lines, lures and nets ensnare, injure and maim wildlife, so be careful not to leave any behind. Pack in plastic bags to carry your rubbish out (and maybe someone else’s).

Before moving on from a camp or resting place, search the area for “micro-rubbish” such as bits of food and rubbish, including cigarette filters and organic litter such as orange peels, or egg and nut shells.

“The earth, like the sun, like the air, belongs to everyone — and to no one.”
Edward Abbey

People visit natural areas for many reasons, among them to explore nature’s mysteries and surprises.

When we leave rocks, shells, plants, feathers, fossils, artefacts and other objects of interest as we find them, we pass the gift of discovery on to those who follow.

Particularly, never touch aboriginal rock art or disturb sites of significance.

It’s the missing elements of our favourite places that disturb us the most. “Leave What You Find” means retaining the special qualities of every wilderness area—for the long term.

“In gaining the lovely and the usable, we have given up the incomparable.”
Wallace Stegner

Wildfire destroys thousands of kilometres of bush each year in Australia. Many of these fires are either carelessly or accidentally set by uninformed campers and travellers.

Setting controlled fires is a practice and science of experienced land managers and Indigenous people, and is based on weather, sources of ignition, and fuel. The intent is to reduce the amount of fuel in the forest under-storey in order to decrease the chance of uncontrolled hot fires and regenerate growth. In contrast, large uncontrolled wildfires set unintentionally during hot, dry windy periods can spread rapidly and result in the critical loss of natural habitat, property and human life.

Along with the destructive nature of fire, the natural appearance of many recreation areas has been compromised by the careless use of campfires and the demand for firewood. Campfires are beautiful by night. But the enormous rings of soot-scarred rocks – overflowing with ashes, partly burned logs, food and rubbish – are unsightly. Surrounding areas have been stripped of their natural beauty as every scrap of dry wood has been torched.

Some of us grew up with the tradition of campfires. But they are no longer essential for comfort or food preparation.

“The stark truth is, if we want wild animals, we have to make sacrifices.”
Colin Tudge, Wildlife Conservation

Encounters with wildlife inspire tall tales and long moments of wonder. Unfortunately, wildlife around the world faces threats from loss and fragmentation of habitat, invasive species, pollution, over-exploitation, poaching and disease.

Protected lands offer a last refuge from some, but not all, of these problems. Consequently, wild animals and marine life need recreators who will promote their survival rather than add to the difficulties they already face. We know that animals respond to people in different ways. Some species adapt readily to humans in their domain, resume their normal behaviours and may have become “habituated.”

Other animals flee from humans, abandoning their young or critical habitat. Still, others are attracted and endangered by human food and rubbish. Because outdoor recreation is dispersed over large areas and at all times of the year, its impacts on wildlife can be equally as disruptive.

All species are to some extent, affected by people visiting their habitats. We are responsible for coexisting peacefully with wildlife.

“Supreme over all is silence.”
John McPhee

“Silence is the element in which all great things are fashioned.”
Thomas Carlyle

Today, we must consider the rights of traditional landowners as well as share the wilderness with people of all recreational persuasions. There is simply not enough country for every category of enthusiast to have exclusive use of land, wilderness, trails, bush, lakes, rivers, and campgrounds.

Yet the subject of outdoor “etiquette” is often neglected. We’re reluctant to examine our personal behaviours, least of all in the wilderness where, to many, a sense of freedom is paramount.

Climate Change

We take sustainable travel seriously in our adventure business, and we constantly strive to implement sustainable best practices across all aspects of our business through continuous assessment and evaluation of our outdoor activities and practices.

Global climate is the average climate over the entire planet. People are becoming increasingly concerned because the earth’s average temperature is gradually increasing, causing potentially more severe and unpredictable weather patterns. The earth is warming up faster than at any recorded time in history.

The CSIRO has released recent studies highlighting these climate changes and the possible causes. They concluded that Australia’s weather and climate are changing in response to a warming global climate system.

Key points

  • Australia’s climate has warmed, with around a 1 °C increase in both mean surface air temperature and surrounding sea surface temperature since 1910
  • The duration, frequency and intensity of extreme heat events have increased across large parts of Australia.
  • The number of days per year over 35 °C has increased in recent decades, except in parts of northern Australia.

Read the full CSIRO report on their study of climate change

As a company, we are committed to climate change because we see the effects of an increasing global temperature firsthand by spending time in places where the effects are much more noticeable in snow-lined and water-based wilderness regions. We encourage all our guests to help reduce their emissions where possible and try to offset the footprint used during our adventures. If you are interested in offsetting your carbon footprint from your adventure activity, the link below will take you to the Government Department of the Environment and Energy website. The website provides education about carbon offsetting and a directory of regulated Australian companies that can provide carbon offsets.

Government Department of The Environment and Energy website