This section of our site hosts information about conservation and sustainability topics, including our own efforts to run sustainable tours and protect the native rainforest, as well as any information you’d like to share with other users of this site.
Click here to contribute to our site if you’d like to share information about conservation with our visitors.
Mahalo a nui loa!
Sustainable tourism is commonly defined as providing long term benefits to the economy, society and ecology of local communities, as well as meeting the financial needs of the tour operator.
At this stage in the development of our company, our conservation and sustainability efforts are inherent to our operation in several major ways:
1. Personal tour service: We intend to create a long-lasting connection between our visitors and our island by providing as complete an experience as possible, which we believe is difficult in larger groups (our maximum is 4 people). By personally engaging and involving our visitors in our natural and cultural ecosystems, we hope to nurture an awareness of the blessings and challenges facing the communities living on and sustaining Hawai’i Island which will persist and be shared among their own communities.
2. Supporting local communities: We make a concerted effort to promote local businesses, goods, food, music, arts and culture as a regular part of our tours. We’re not salesmen and won’t push anything on anyone, we just believe that local is better. Since 90% of our island goods are imported, this can be a real eye-opener and challenge! In addition, VolcanoDiscovery Hawai’i is locally owned and operated and contributes to the island economy by employing conscious local guides.
3. Native forest stewardship: VolcanoDiscovery Hawai’i operates from within an endemic ecosystem on 6 acres near the Volcano community on Hawai’i Island, where our first task is one of stewardship of this native forest, home to many threatened and endangered endemic plants and insects. We continually work to conserve and better this resource by removing threatening invasive species and replanting native, uncommon ones, as well as protecting the naturally-occuring rare, threatened and endangered species in our area.
4. Sustainable operation: Our office is run completely off-grid in a sustainable fashion with solar electric power, rainwater catchment, and a composting toilet, and our food comes from local growers and our own gardens. As an oil-poor island community we face many challenges, not least of which is a lack of alternatives to petroleum-based fuel, so we do what we can within our present infrastructure and actively promote the development of new locally-sustainable energy sources such as biofuels to complement our existing and growing facilities for geothermal, solar, wind and hydropower.
5. Voluntourism: We will happily accomodate visitors who would like to get personally and physically involved by volunteering some of their time to our conservation efforts, which typically consist of weeding invasive species and planting natives ones. We understand this isn’t for everyone, so please let us know if you’d like to include this on your tour and we will make the necessary arrangements.
We plan to expand our efforts as our budget grows to include partnerships with local conservation groups and like-minded businesses and individuals, as well as to expand our physical and financial commitment to island conservation and sustainability.
Mahalo for your interest!
Ka’u Preservation
A conservation group focused on sustainable development of Hawai’i island’s rawest and most remote district.
Green Collar Technologies
A green collar resources blog for Hawai’i Island.
SusHI | Sustainability in Hawai’i
A green economist’s blog on achieving a sustainable Hawai’i.
The Earth Charter Initiative
A global civil society effort in which many thousands of people have actively participated over a period of more than fifteen years.
