How Dreamland Safari Tours Celebrates Earth Day, Every Day 

There’s a famous quote that states, “Every day should be Earth Day.”

Here at Dreamland, it’s important to us to do our part in protecting the environment. As an outdoor tour company, we aim to give as much back to our community as nature has given to us. We constantly look for ways to preserve the beauty of our planet so we may continue to share the epic wonders of Kanab’s backcountry with people from all over the world for years to come. We take this responsibility seriously and aspire to be a positive example of sustainable business practices in our community.

For one, we proudly donate through the global program “1% For the Planet” – but we also prioritize participating in local environmental projects. Additionally, we make it a point to give every guest a reusable Nalgene water bottle with the intent of limiting the use of single-use plastics during our tours.  That initiative alone has already eliminated more than 10,000 single-use plastic bottles since we introduced our reusable Nalgene bottles last summer.

Earth Day officially lands on April 22 every year, but our Dreamland team decided to start celebrations a little early in 2021 with a collaborative local garbage cleanup. We partnered with Kanab-based training company Quantum NLP, and together we organized a community trash collection project with the students of Kanab High School.

On April 9, we invited students from Kanab High School to volunteer with us and to help clean up the parking lot and trail leading to Peekaboo Canyon north of Kanab. We chose this spot for a reason: due to the closure of Antelope Canyon in Page, there has been a significant increase in traffic at Peekaboo.  That traffic in turn resulted in a noticeable accumulation of garbage from careless visitors who’d leave behind everything from cans and plastic bottles to candy bar wrappers and toilet paper. We spent a couple of hours cleaning every bit of trash we could find, then rewarded our volunteers by driving to the canyon to explore its red rock beauty.

When talking to the students, it became clear to us how concerned our future generations were about the increase of litter being left on the side of our highways, roads, and trails. It’s unfortunate that increased visitation to iconic landmarks often correlates with thoughtless use by visitors. Famous local sites such as Peekaboo Canyon, the Toadstools, and Wire Pass have all experienced more and more littering and degradation in recent years. This is a continuous concern for us here at Dreamland, as we continue to try and balance the line between wanting to share our amazing backyard with guests while also helping visitors understand the importance of taking great care of these special treasures.

That’s why, a week after the inaugural Peekaboo cleanup, we continued on with our mission to treat every day like Earth Day. Our volunteer team decided to take on another large cleanup project, this time along a four-mile stretch on Hancock Road that leads from Highway 89 to Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park. We filled an entire truck with garbage. Even then, it still felt like we only scratched the surface. It is our commitment to continue this work.

We aren’t perfect here at Dreamland (we burn lots of fuel in our trucks!), but we do care about the future of our planet and do our best to implement ways to become a more sustainable business. If you’d like to join us, here are three simple things you can do to protect our planet starting today:

● Reduce, reuse, and recycle – make a conscious effort to reuse what you can, recycle glass/cardboard/paper/etc., and take note of what you’re throwing away; reduce your reliance on items that you may be discarding large amounts of.

● Choose sustainable – Use products or buy from businesses that practice sustainability.
● Educate – help others understand the importance of keeping our earth healthy, too.

Help us keep nature pristine for generations to come by doing your part every day. Acts as simple as picking up garbage when you see it, adopting reusable and sustainable products, recycling, and encouraging others to do the same can make all the difference for our planet’s future.

Let’s work together to leave behind a better planet.