about Araucaria Ecotours |
About Araucaria Ecotours
Contact: Phone 61 7 5544 1283 (07 5544 1283 in Australia or 5544 1283 in Queensland) or email us
Our name:
Our name
Araucaria is the genus name of the hoop pines, which are amongst the tallest trees of the local rainforests, and the Bunya pine, native to the forests north of Brisbane Other Araucaria spoecies are found in islands near Australia and also South America - related by ancestry in the great supercontinent of Gondwana. The famous wollemi pine, a majestic tree discovered only a few years ago in the Blue Mountains, is in the same family. The Araucaria 6trees puictured here are on the Araucaria property
Our main goal for Araucaria Ecotours is to provide a very enjoyable way for our guests to see and learn about Australia's wildlife. It is the kind of tour we would really appreciate when visiting another country. We uphold the ideals of ecotourism: environmentally friendly (not disturbing the wildlife, not using disposable utensils etc), educational (quality interpretation in an enjoyable manner), nature-based (we visit national parks and other areas of natural habitat, including World Heritage rainforests, and look for wildlife in the wild) and supporting the local community (buying locally, participating in local community activities, preparing natural history information for the local museum etc)
Our people
Araucaria Ecotours' tour guides
Your guide throughout most tours is Ronda Green, BSc(Hons),PhD,who has had many years' experience in:
Her home base and major research area (mostly focusing on the birds and other animals that disperse seeds of rainforest fruits) for the past couple of decades has been the Border Ranges, our major tour destination.
(Note: we don't usually handle the wildlife, but the carpet snake shown here couldn't really be allowed to stay in our chicken coop, so was escorted to the creek)
Ronda is currently an Honorary Research Fellow in Environmental Sciences, Griffith University, where she conducted her post-graduate research on seed dispersal by rainforest birds and chaired the 4th International SymposiumWorskshop on Frugivores and Seed Dispersal in 2005, for which Araucaria Ecotours was also a sponsor. .
She is also vice-chair of Wildlife Tourism Australia, which aims at helping to build a diverse wildlife tourism industry which supports conservation. Ronda was successful last year in obtaining a grant through Wildlife Tourism Australia and another through the Logan and Albert Conservation Association to run a series of wildlife workshops in the Beaudesert area culminating in a month-long Wildlife Festival. She has previously prepared the Southern Queensland Wildlife Trail, a position paper on wildlife-feeding and participated in various other activities for WTA
She and Darren combine to conduct fauna surveys for environmental assessment.
A sample of publications
(see Consultancies for additional publications)
Ronda has also been the moderator of the Australian and Nicaragua forums for Planeta (a web-based source of information and discussion on many aspects of ecotourism set up some years ago by travel writer Ron Mader). Ronda is also on the executive committee of both the Lamington Natural History Association and the , and belongs to the Logan and Albert Conservation Association, the Northern New South Wales Ecotourism Association and the Centre for Innovative Conservation Research (based at Griffith University).
Denis Green
Denis Green holds a Bachelor of Applied Science from Deakin University and has worked as an industrial chemist and a maths and science teacher.
Now in addition to being co-proprietor, finance officer and guide for Araucaria Ecotours he writes software programs for MacIntosh computers. A current project involves interpretive programs for the Lamington Natural History Association's information centre at Binna Burra.
He was a keen scuba diver until health problems forced him to quit, but still enjoys snorkeling. He has traveled in all mainland Australian states and territories, England, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Bali, Brazil and Argentina.
Denis and Ronda were married in 1976 under the treeferns of Sherbrooke Forest (Dandenong Ranges, Victoria), and have lived together at Running Creek, on the Queensland side of the Border Ranges, since 1980.
Darren Green (son of Ronda and Denis, born 1981) has lived all his life at Running Creek, and has always taken an interest in the wildlife of the area and enjoyed walking in the hills and forests around home and elsewhere. He leads some of the interpretive walks during tours and assists generally with landscaping and various other aspects of Araucaria Ecotours.
Darren has a passion for music, and has been assessed as having perfect pitch. He plays piano, keyboard,guitar, piano accordion, violin and recorder, but his favourite instrument is piano. He composes on the piano as well as on the computer. He also sings, and is a member of the Queensland Music Theatre, participating in musicals such as "Show Boat" and "Trial by Jury". He has studied various music and drama subjects at Griffith University, and operatic singing.
He plays his own piano compositions at the monthly Beau Jam in Beaudesert, and in 2007 was commissioned to play at the first Arts Trail dinner (pictuyred, left) and a wedding
Darren has traveled in most Australian states and territories as well as Bali, Argentina, South Africa and Brazil (Amazon, Pantanal, Rio, Iguasu). He speaks a little Spanish and Mandarin with a few phrases of other languages.
He is a keen photographer, especially of natural history subjects: everything from beetles to emus.
Our home property
| Our home property (which our guests visit during the three-day wildlife tour) is adjacent to Mount Chinghee National Park and Running Creek, and covers 87 acres. Our wildlife includes platypus, koala, red-necked wallaby, brushtail possum, squirrel glider, northern brown bandicoot, brushtailed phascogale, yellow-footed antechinus, water-rat and other native rats, fruitbats, microbats, regent bowerbird, lewin's honeyeater, eastern whipbird, sulphur-crested cockatoo, azure kingfisher, black-breasted button-quail, tawny frogmouth, little pied cormorant and many other birds, lace monitor (goannas), bearded dragon, eastern water dragon, eastern water skink, major skink, carpet python, short-necked turtle and other reptiles, green tree frog, stoney creek frogs, broad-palmed rocket frogs, ornate burrowing frogs and other frogs, eels, catfish and other fish plus many butterflies and other invertebrates. These creatures are all truly wild, so we cannot guarantee seeing any particular species, but there is always something to see. |  |
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This is a diverse and fascinating area for those interested in fauna and flora.
Two of the world's largest shield volcanoes erupted between about 25,000,000 and 22,000,000 years ago, providing high-nutrient soils and a scenic mountainous landscape to the area near the border of Queensland and New South Wales . The mountains nearest the east coast are well-watered, but create a rain-shadow to the west, resulting in different kinds of forest, now harbouring a variety of wildlife. The world's largest tract of subtropical rainforest spans the Queensland/NSW border, including some "dry rainforest" (where trees, shrubs and vines are adapted to withstand winter droughts and there are fewer mosses, ferns and palms) on the western slopes. There are also several kinds of eucalypt forest, sheoak communities, heathlands and other vegetation types.
Southeast Queensland is also the northern limit of cool-temperate rainforest, dominated by Antarctic Beech, in Australia (it reappears on the tallest mountains of New Guinea) - similar to the Gondwanan-linked beech forests of south-eastern Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina.
Over half the bird species of Australia have been seen in southeast Queensland, and there is a rich diversity of mammals, reptiles, frogs, Gondwanan-linked land-smails and other wildlife.
See further details of this and other areas within southeast Queensland and northeast New South Wales
Tourism is ecotourism if: it is environmentally sustainable (and ideally has a positive effect on the environment), is nature-based (predominantly taking place in areas of natural habitat), interprets nature (enhancing understanding and appreciation of fauna, flora, natural landscapes etc), contributes to the local community and offers travelers a quality experience.
Visit Ecotourism Australia for more information about the Eco-accreditation system in Australia, a world leader in ecotourism accreditation.
How Araucaria Ecotours began
The idea began some years ago. For almost three years before commencing university to study zoology, Ronda had run a holiday farm in the Adelaide Hills, a major aim of which was to encourage an appreciation of nature and a fascination with all aspects of natural history; using nature-based games, nature treks through the bushland and the development of a small natural history museum.
Years later, after completing a PhD in zoology, becoming wife and mother, lecturing and conducting ecological research, she and husband Denis began seeking out a suitable property with the aim of running activities which combined enjoyable ways of learning about Australia's wildlife and other natural history with a holiday in natural surroundings.
The land they bought on the banks of Running Creek (South-east Queensland) was ideal: only a 90-minute drive from Brisbane; 87 acres adjacent to a national park (Mt Chinghee NP: a rainforest-clad mountain); a few km from the largest area of subtropical rainforest in the world (Lamington NP and the adjoining Border Ranges NP); a kilometre of creek along the property boundary (well-named "Running Creek": it keeps running through the worst of droughts) with platypus, turtles and native fish; several habitats on the property (rainforest regeneration of various ages, creekside sheoak forest, and eucalypt-studded pasture); and a variety of terrestrial wildlife: possums and gliders, wallabies and kangaroos, bandicoots, antechinuses (small carnivorous marsupials), fruitbats, insectivorous bats and native rodents; bowerbirds, button-quails, fruit-pigeons, cockatoos and parrots, eagles and hawks, ducks, cormorants, brush turkeys and many other birds; freshwater turtles, carpet pythons (harmless to humans), water dragons, goannas and many other lizards; several species of tree-frogs and 'southern' frogs; plus many interesting invertebrates such as the large carnivorous king cricket of the rainforest floor and several species of land snails of Gondwanan ancestry.
For the next 15 years the idea was shelved while Ronda worked as research ecologist,lecturer, National Parks ranger (interpretive activities) and environmental consultant - shelved but not forgotten. By the time she and Denis decided to launch into their project, the word "ecotourism" had been coined and sounded very much like the definition of what they had been planning all along. They subsequently joined the Ecotourism Association of Australia, and became accredited with NEAP (National Ecotourism Accreditation Program) in 1999.
Ronda's research had mostly involved birds, but from an early age she had been interested in all things living, and some of her ecological work and environmental consultancies has involved other wildlife groups (mammals, reptiles, frogs, fish, insects etc.). While teaching a University course in Techniques for Wildlife Conservation and an Adult Education course in Wildlife of Southeast Queensland, she enjoyed educating herself further on all wildlife groups, developed methods of aiding her memory, and searched with particular interest for ecological relationships between different kinds of animals and between animals and plants. This gave her a useful background in providing the kinds of experiences to help others quickly grasp an overview of Australia's wildlife and to delve more deeply into areas of their special interests (which later she summarised in a book now given to each guest on the 3-day wildlife tour and available for sale to others). Experience in traveling in many other countries also encouraged her to think of the kinds of tour she would most have appreciated when arriving in a new land - and not just from the point of view of a professional zoologist but with memories of her own attempts at learning and understanding well before entering university.
So preparations began, permits were sought, possible routes investigated, equipment purchased etc., and the first Araucaria Ecotours 3-day wildlife tour was run in May 1997: this is still our specialty. A number of shorter tours have been added, catering for wildlife enthusiasts, bird-watchers, bush walkers, and those who just want to experience a bit of Australian forest and scenery. Customized tours can include horse-riding, canoeing, whale-watching, zoo visits, Aussie farm life, abseiling and other activities. A recent development is our new Wildlife Information Centre (pictured here) with associated nature trails, to have its grand opening in September 2008 but with some displays viewable now.
What is Ecotourism