Owen River Lodge is the world’s first Carbon Positive fishing lodge!

August 10, 2021

By Felix Borenstein



Owen River Lodge is the world’s first Carbon Positive fishing lodge!

We’re pretty sure of this—we weren’t able to find any others—but we’ll happily stand corrected if we’re wrong. As far as we’re concerned, the more Carbon Positive luxury fishing lodges in the world, the better.

All the certifications we hold and the awards we’ve won have a very strong environmental component, so we’ve always walked the talk when it comes to sustainability. But it goes deeper than that.

Trashing the planet makes no sense to us; never has. Plus, there are no trout on Mars, so we’ve concluded that staying here and looking after the place as best we can is our only option!

It is important that we didn’t aim just to be Carbon Neutral, I wanted my lodge to give back more than it takes!


What our Carbon Positive accreditation actually means

We measured and offset 120% of our carbon footprint for the 2021 financial year with certified carbon credits. This made us eligible for Climate Positive Business Operations certification by carbon trading social enterprise, Ekos.

In a nutshell? We’re financing the drawdown of 20% more carbon than we release—which is basically what trees do.

Locally-sourced carbon credits

We wanted to use locally-sourced certified carbon credits, so we settled on the Kānuka Uruwhenua Native Regeneration Project in Golden Bay. That’s less than 2.5 hours from the Lodge.

The project covers 76.4 hectares of naturally-regenerating indigenous forest that sequesters 896 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.

Native plantings bring more environmental benefits than other options for carbon credits. That was also important to us.

What this means for you

You can rest assured that we’re continuing to do everything we can to preserve our environment and support wider conservation initiatives. We’re not adding to the planet’s problems.

It also means we can back up every claim we make around sustainability with independent accreditation. No green-washing here.

What’s next?

And on the sustainability front, there’s plenty to come. Native planting on the river frontage will continue and we’re planning to invest in solar panels on the main Lodge roof. And then there’s the electric 4 wheel drive..…

Covid 19

New Zealand is slowly immunizing our people - a lot slower than many other countries, but we are getting there.

If you book a fishing holiday with us, and you’re unable to make the trip due to official government travel restrictions implemented because of the Covid-19 coronavirus, all payments will be credited to a future stay at Owen River Lodge.

This credit will be valid for 24 months.

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Awards & acknowledgements

Owen River Lodge NZ: “Fly fishing at its very best”

Ph: +64 3 523 9075 Address: Owen Valley East Road, Murchison, Nelson, South Island, New Zealand

Email: fish@elevenangling.com