Tree climbing on the Isle of Wight

Tree climbing on the Isle of Wight

How this holiday makes a difference

Environment

Tree climbing is a low impact activity that does not harm the tree or the environment in which it stands. We use specialist equipment to protect the bark of the tree when climbing takes place. We do not have any signs, displays or any other structures in our field – we keep the environment as natural and rural as possible. We promote the positive benefits that trees have on our environment wherever possible during a tree climbing session. We encourage our climbers to come by public transport and to do this we offer a 5% discount for those coming by public transport, bike or foot and always give information on bus and cycle routes.

In our office we make positive attempts to minimise use of resources - we switch off the computer when not in use, we use energy efficient light bulbs in our home office. To reduce paper consumption we email or text directions to climbers and try to use the web for publicity as much as possible. All the paper that we do use for printing is either recycled from another local business (we double side the printing) or 100% recycled. Our publicity flyers are printed on 50% recycled 50% FSC sourced stock using vegetable based, solvent free inks.

Community

We love the Isle of Wight and are always keen to recommend other things to do and other places on the Island that people may enjoy and that will benefit the local economy and environment. We support Gift to Nature & Trees for Cities, we collect donations from our customers. We positively support both these charities by giving people information about their work and suggesting places on the Island where people can be involved in a Gift to Nature project. We volunteer for the Wight Squirrel Project using our climbing equipment to climb trees to feed the local indigenous red squirrel population. All the tea, coffee, squash that we use is fair-trade and/or organic and is bought through local suppliers.

We work with other local companies and suggest packages for customers that include accommodations such as the B&B at Briddlesford Lodge Farm where our milk (for tea and coffee) comes from and other local hotels and campsites that we know to be run ethically. We have one full time member of staff who lives locally and who has re-trained to become a tree climbing instructor. We always suggest a visit to the local pub for lunch after climbing.

Landscape

Tree climbing with us gives everyone the opportunity to see a bird’s eye view of the countryside – you can really appreciate how spectacular nature is when you’re sitting on a branch that’s 50ft up in the canopy! We climb in an English Oak which is between 200 and 300 years old and which is set in a beautiful field within the Isle of Wight Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The field is home to all sorts of wildlife; pheasants and red squirrels are residents and the seasons bring many different visitors to us; Great Tits, St Marks Flies to name a couple. Our tree has seen a lot of history, we try to encourage people to think about their relationship with the countryside by promoting local products – milk for our cups of tea comes from cows grazing a mile or two down the road.

Tree climbing on the Isle of Wight