Araucaria Ecotours

08/05/2026

In 2024 Wildlife Tourism Australia ran a very lively and productive conference focussing on quality nature interpretation (face-to-face, indoor and outdoor signage, videos, puppets, storytelling, virtual reality ...). The report of that conference plus pdfs of some of the presentations, are now available for free downloads.

Wild Tails: the Value of Story-telling and other Quality Interpretation in Wildlife Tourism Tuesday to Thursday 5-7 November 2024 This was a conference for tour guides, ecolodges, conservation managers, researchers students, wildlife parks, destination managers, NGOs and general educators Wildlife-T...

03/05/2026

The report for the 2024 Wildlife Tourism Australia conference "Wild Tails: the Value of Story-telling and other Quality Interpretation in Wildlife Tourism" is now available for free download

Wild Tails: the Value of Story-telling and other Quality Interpretation in Wildlife Tourism Tuesday to Thursday 5-7 November 2024 This was a conference for tour guides, ecolodges, conservation managers, researchers students, wildlife parks, destination managers, NGOs and general educators Wildlife-T...

15/04/2026

Walking in coastal woodland on Coochiemudlo Island last week - a pretty little island near Brisbane that doesn’t allow building or clearing to the beachfront.

10/03/2026

Being watched by a male Australian king parrot at O’Reillys Rainforest Retreat last week.

08/02/2026

Very honoured to be recognised in this way, along with colleague David Newsome, with whom I've been co-authoring a wildlife guide manual for Borneo Eco Tours (Sabah, Malaysian Borneo)for the past year or so and to be laughed at Sukau next month. (the photo was after my keynote address in Java at Indonesia's Biodiversity Conservation and Ecotourism conference)

Dr Ronda Joy Green is a research ecologist, sustainable wildlife tourism specialist, author and ecotourism proprietor with over four decades of experience spanning research, education, consultancy and conservation leadership. She holds a BSc (Honours) in Zoology from the University of Adelaide and a...

05/02/2026

We'll be here again tomorrow. Tamborine Skywalk, where we wak through the canopy of a rainforest as well as along the track on the ground, and also sit in a spot where Richmond birdwing butterflies (second largest butterfly in Australia) often visit on a sunny day. The brothers who run Skywalk are very conservation-minded and made sure no trees had to be felled for this, the pylons being brought in by helicopter

31/01/2026

An important conference, face-to-face and online

16/01/2026

https://newshub.medianet.com.au/2026/01/why-birdwatching-is-having-a-moment-and-the-scenic-rim-is-place-to-do-it/135859/. I'm afraid we've never seen eastern bristlebird, black-breasted button-quail or powerful owls on our birdwatching tours in the Scenic Rim (although I've occasionally seen bristlebird south of the border, powerful owl in Toohey Forest, and very occasionally the button quail on our own home property in the Scenic Rim), but some of the others we almost always see (e.g. satin bowerbird), some we hear more often than see (e.g. catbird) and some we see occasionally (e.g. glossy black cockatoo). The emphasis in our tours is not so much to add to a list (although we do that to) as to observe behaviour and discuss the birds' ecology.

The Rise and Rise of Twitching: Why birdwatching is having a moment and the Scenic Rim is place to do it   Birdwatching, once stereotyped as an old-person pastime in khaki vests, is undergoing a serious glow-up. People are flocking to the experience not just for quietness of it, but for the adventu...

12/01/2026

Lovely moth on the wall on a warm night at O’Reillys Rainforest Retreat.

30/12/2025

Darren and I have just planted a few more wildlife-friendly trees on the Araucaria property. Some have locally-indigenous fruits or flowers for birds and bats, some produce nectar for birds and native bees and some are the food plants of the caterpillars of our local butterflies.