Raggy Charters https://www.raggycharters.co.za isn’t your normal dolphin-watching boat company.
You see owner Lloyd Edwards and manager Jake Keeton are putting back what they are using in carbon emissions whey they are whizzing their boat around Algoa Bay, the bottlenose dolphin capital of the world.
I have come to Port Elizabeth on South Africa’s Eastern Cape to find out more.
And to meet the locals…Human, dolphin and pussycat https://www.visiteasterncape.co.za www.southafrica.net and What’s new pussycat?.
Raggy Charters’ Lloyd and Jake (and Sahara their Jack Russell) have a mini-jungle of plants around their jetty.
And they plant a new spekboom plant every time they take the boat out.. it acts as a succulent. And here’s where you can find out a lot more… https://www.samara.co.za/blog/five-things-didnt-know-spekboom/.
Cuttings to the chase
The spekboom project which originated in the Eastern Cape is the idea of Aidan Lawrence, of SATSA Eastern Cape, who handed out 600 spekboom cuttings to delegates.
This is SA’s response to the carbon emissions problem.
Flying shame
And the flygskam (flying shame) campaign championed by Greta Thumberg among others.
All of which salves my conscience a little as I am acutely aware of how many air miles I have been chalking up.
You see the humble speksboom only stores solar energy to perform photosynthesis at night.
And it is ten times more effective per hectare than any tropical rainforest.And I’ve seen how valuable our rainforests are this year, in Tobago, www.visittobsgo.gov.tt and It’s Robinson Crusoe’s very own Tobago.
While we doff our hats to what the South Africans are doing on the ground it is worth mentioning that global airlines and cruise liners continue to explore ways they can address carbon emissions.
And British Airways www.ba.com are leading the way.
From the start of this year BA is now offsetting carbon emissions on all flights within the UK.And it is investing money in green projects around the world.
The challenge ahead
The challenge remains huge.
With a study from 1st Move International https://www.shipit.co.uk/blog/other-articles/cost-of-carbon highlighting the 20 top destinations for travellers from the UK.
Not to depress you but a return trip from London to Mallorca will cost the planet six trees.
I feel a little less guilty because my flights to Tenerife www.hellocanaryislands.com and https://www.visitingtenerife.com.
And A walk through the ages… Tenerife Tenerife was five trees.
And I took me in some rainforest there too.
Plant those trees
The 15.62 average UK visitors to Spain would each owe 43,237,500 trees, about 3017 football pitches.
But who knew that Nature may just hold the answer in this little plant, the spekboom?