20 Mar 2023
This May, the B-Alternative team are hosting Regen and Repair tour in Far North Queensland - tree planting, removing plastic from remote beaches, surveying corals, witnessing carbon farming first-hand, and learning from the world's oldest living culture.
B-Alternative's mission is to create a positive impact on our shared planet through every action we take, so we're excited to embark on this journey to be part of positive change. We'll be travelling through Kuku Yalanji land, Guugu Yimithirr Country, Gunggandji Sea Country, and Tablelands Yidinji Country.
B-Alternative wishes to respectfully acknowledge the Yirrganydji and Djabugay People, who are the Traditional Owners of the unceded lands on which the team is staying and travelling on. We pay respect to Elders past, and present, and endeavour to practice and enhance allyship to our best ability.
What will we be doing?
We start our journey by joining one of our regenerative partners, Rainforest Rescue for their annual tree planting day on Kuku Yalanji land on Saturday 6th May.
Then on the 8th May, our team will embark on a journey to Cape Bedford, an incredible remote beach located on Guugu Yimithirr Country near Cooktown, Cape York. We have permission from the Thiithaarr Warra People to visit the area to remove plastics that have washed in from the ocean.
On the 12th May, we'll be joining our collaborator, Parley who work hard to find a second life for plastic collected during clean-up events to keep it out of landfill.
Once the plastics arrive back at Parley Australia’s office, it is sorted and re-used, up-cycled, or recycled as much as possible through Parley’s collaborators.
Parley have invited us to their sorting facility to better understand what’s involved and to be part of the action. We will process the plastics we collect from the beach, as well as others collected by bigger clean-ups in the region.
On the 13th of May, we'll head out to Fitzroy Island National Park, in Gunggandji Sea Country, for some snorkelling and will be joined by coral conservationist, Nicole, from Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef. Coral Watch is a citizen science program based at the University of Queensland. Volunteers can help by getting in the water and assessing coral health to feed into a global database.
While we're there, we will also check out the amazing coral planting site managed by Reef Restoration.
On the 14th of May, we'll visit the Native Conifer Carbon Sink Project (NCCSP) in the Southern Atherton tablelands, accompanied by the project's Director, Daryl. This is where your trees are planted if you offset your carbon footprint through the Reforest app.
This project has been carefully planned from the start, with longevity in mind. NCCSP was the first carbon farm to be accredited by the Federal Government's Clean Energy Regulator to produce high-integrity, tradable Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) and has paved the way for other projects involving the permanent planting of native trees nationally.
This area belongs to the Tablelands Yidinji people.
We are excited to share more with you, and as always to learn more about the sacred land we work, play, and live on. We acknowledge that we are on stolen land, and these lands have never been ceded. As businesses who try to be better allies, we encourage everyone to take opportunities to learn about the oldest living culture in the world, Australia's First Nations people.