Saltwater Eco bridges the gap between recreation and conservation offering you a saltwater connection through their surfing and snorkelling platforms.

The best way to introduce Saltwater Eco is to start off by telling you a bit about myself and Kirst, the Co-Founders; as the business concept and ethos surrounding our offerings are quite literally extensions of ourselves.

We both grew up with this unquenchable desire to be completely saturated by the ocean.

For me, this meant following my childhood dream to become a marine biologist and ecologist, later working in ecotourism and becoming a Dive Master. I was always going to be an environmental advocate.

For Kirst, it was more specific, at first. Surfing was her passion and focus from an early age and that drove her to excel in what was, at the time, a heavily male-oriented domain. Later she began to broaden her focus into adventure tourism, teaching, and conservation.

Connection

Some people develop their connection with the natural world from a very early age, to the point where it has always been a part of them. Others need a supportive push in the right direction. The famous quote by Jacques Cousteau “people protect what they love” is so very true and if you want others to protect and cherish what you think is important i.e. our planet, our oceans, then it makes sense to help facilitate that connection.

Recreation & Conservation

So that’s what we did, Saltwater Eco came into being and we have been bridging the gap between recreation and conservation ever since. Marine recreation, in the form of surfing and snorkeling lessons, became our platforms to connect everyday people to the ocean. Experiencing the buzz of catching your first wave and/or peering underwater for the first time are such powerful connectors that stay with you for the rest of your life.

Our Saltwater offerings are designed to excite, energise and really focus on making that connection for people. This, in turn, creates the perfect opportunity to educate and raise awareness about the sustainability issues that the marine environment faces.

The quality and care shown in Saltwater’s conception are mirrored by the products we offer. We pride ourselves on delivering exceptional experiences, which embody quality over quantity, long-term achievements over short-term fixes.

Leading by example

Moreover, we lead by example and walk our talk actively giving back to the local environments in which we operate, and importantly encouraging our clients to do the same. This is summarised in our Saltwater Sustainability arm, whereby we organise annual beach cleans, marine debris education sessions and community planting days.

New to this year we are launching our first ever eco campaign: Straw Free NZ which is aimed to change New Zealand’s straw culture, moving away from single-use plastic straws.

When we started our Saltwater Eco journey we had no idea what would happen, one of our biggest challenges has always been trying to balance being both environmentally and economically sustainable, but that’s another blog post!

In the meantime, we’re excited to be challenging conventions, promoting sustainable tourism and responsible recreation and nurturing a growing community of like-minded ocean enthusiasts ready to spread their own messages.