The Hotel Britomart in Auckland is launching a new regenerative travel experience that takes guests into New Zealand’s beautiful native bush for an immersive sensory adventure that gives back to the planet and local community.
Catering to the growing number of travellers considering the environmental and social impacts of their trip, the half-day (four hour) visit to a ‘native forest farm’ teaches guests to harvest native herbs and plant ingredients to be later used in a delicious taster, educates them on local traditions and enables them to learn how reforesting native bush helps New Zealand’s rich biodiversity flourish.
The Hotel Britomart has partnered with Velskov, a regenerative New Zealand native forest farm located in Parau, 25km west of Auckland’s CBD, to offer the experience.
Guests make the 45min journey to Velskov’s native forest farm in an electric van. There, they learn how to forage native foods, about the taste qualities and traditional uses of native herbs and plants, about local customs and culture and plant a native tree* to restore the forest, sequester carbon into the future and stand as a lasting marker of their trip to New Zealand.
New Zealand has lost around 75 percent of its original native forest cover. Velskov aims to make native forest food farming commercially viable, to encourage the return of land to forest cover.
Clinton Farley, general manager of The Hotel Britomart, says, “The tourism industry has an important part to play in conservation and the impacts on local communities, especially as we head towards New Zealand’s goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Regenerative travel is an important space for us and we see our partnership with Velskov as an opportunity to help our guests learn more about sustainability and give back in a small way to the communities they are visiting. We hope by taking part in this tour, our guests will gain a better understanding of the importance of regenerating native forests and take that knowledge back home.”
The Nourishing Nature experience will launch on June 1st 2024.
