Best Environmental/Responsible Tourism Feature

An environmental/responsible tourism feature looks at travel from a green point-of-view and/or travel’s impact on the environment, including the human culture it operates within, e.g., breeding programs for endangered animals, a behind-the-scenes look at a LEED certified hotel, or a profile of an indigenous craftsman using sustainable materials.

Best Environmental/Responsible Tourism Feature • Honourable Mention

Award Year: 
2017
Award Recipient: 
Diane Selkirk
Published in: 
ABP Media
Date: 
September 18, 2017
Award Sponsor: 
Destination British Columbia

THIS SOUTH AFRICAN WINERY GAVE ITS WORKERS AN OWNERSHIP STAKE

The South African wine industry is notorious for its brutal conditions. To improve workers' lives, Solms-Delta decided it was time to "extend the pie"

The Cape region of South Africa has been producing wine since the 1650s. In recent years the industry, which employs some 300,000 people and contributes R36.1 billion ($2.7 billion) to the economy, has become known for delicious, inexpensive wines. But the story behind those bottles might put you off your Pinotage. Farm workers on local vineyards earn a minimum...

Best Environmental/Responsible Tourism Feature • Second Place

Award Year: 
2017
Award Recipient: 
Carol Patterson
Published in: 
Onboard Magazine
Date: 
April 1, 2017
Award Sponsor: 
Destination British Columbia

Where the Wild Things Are - Science and Sightings in the Great Bear Rainforest

It’s just after 7 a.m. and I’m standing in a 12-person passenger boat that’s skimming the Johnstone Strait, headed for Knight Inlet in the Great Bear Rainforest. I’m on a daylong, grizzly bear-watching excursion with Tide Rip Tours, and with every tiny island our group zips past, my excitement builds. It’s been a long-held dream of mine to visit this vast and remote tract of temperate rainforest, named for the majestic bruins that thrive there.

Spanning 64,000 square kilometres (an area 11 times...

Best Environmental/Responsible Tourism Feature • First Place

Award Year: 
2017
Award Recipient: 
Hans Tammemagi
Published in: 
British Columbia Magazine
Date: 
October 1, 2016
Award Sponsor: 
Destination British Columbia

An Old-Growth Battlefield – Can We Save our Ancient Matriarchs?

A moss-covered boardwalk led us through a rainforest of immense trees and wild growth in the Walbran Valley west of Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Bright green moss and fungi clung to fallen trees and logs. Huckleberry and thimbleberry bushes sprouted. Delicate sword ferns carpeted the forest floor. Moss hung from branches like beards. I half expected a Jurassic Park-esque velociraptor to charge through the undergrowth.

I was following TJ Watt, a renowned big-tree hunter. Also a...

Best Environmental/Responsible Tourism Feature • First Place • 2016

Award Year: 
2016
Award Recipient: 
Jane Mundy
Category Sponsor: 
Destination British Columbia


Vancouver volunteer uses past skills as a cook to assist refugees

When my friend Laurie Cooper asked if I’d consider volunteering at a refugee camp, I didn’t hesitate. I wanted to do something for the Syrian refugees coming to Vancouver, but I couldn’t offer accommodation or much money. It never occurred to me that I could help at a camp on Lesvos, Greece.

I’m not a medical professional, translator or house builder, but I had plenty of experience cooking in restaurants and had started my career, coincidentally, at Yanni’s Taverna on the Greek island of Ios. It was...

Best Environmental/Responsible Tourism Feature • Second Place • 2016

Award Year: 
2016
Award Recipient: 
Carol Patterson
Category Sponsor: 
Destination British Columbia


Turtles with jobs

I love turtles. Not the chocolate kind or the teenage-mutant characters made famous in the 1980s but the hard-shelled ballerinas of the ocean. I almost swallowed my snorkel the first time I saw a wild sea turtle. Watching colorful angelfish in Maui several years ago, a turtle larger than my suitcase floated into view. It gracefully maneuvered around snorkelers in its pursuit of seaweed, chunks of vegetation disappearing down its throat as excess water squirted out its nose.

Since that encounter I look for turtles whenever I'm at a coastal destination...