New Zealanders have always been pretty big on spending time outdoors. Nature, and spending time in it, are and have always been a part of our cultural identity – and why not, when we’ve been gifted with some of the most amazing and diverse environments on Earth?

From beautiful Waiheke up north to the stunning Remarkables down south, and our festival home in the middle, the breath-taking Golden Bay – our incredibly beautiful natural environment is why we love to spend time camping, tramping, and generally just existing in the outdoors… And it’s pretty important that we keep it beautiful, to preserve this huge part of our culture and national identity.

We all recognise how one small action taken outdoors can have wider implications within the ecosystem, and how lots of small actions can add up to a pretty significant impact on an environment. But no one of us is perfect – we all have the ability to unconsciously contribute to the degradation of the environment through tiny, seemingly negligible actions while we’re out spending time in nature.

So over the next couple of months we’ll be posting up a series of articles on the different ways in which camping has the potential to negatively affect the environment, and some ideas of small (but totally worthwhile!) actions that we can all take while camping to minimise our impact. It is of the utmost importance for all of us to continually make conscious, mindful decisions while spending time in our beautiful outdoors – to protect our flora and fauna into the future :-)