NSW Central Coast celebrates fourth year on the Green Destinations Top 100 List

For the fourth year in a row since first entering in 2021, the New South Wales Central Coast is celebrating its official selection as a Finalist in the 2024 Green Destinations Top 100 List.

This internationally recognised competition is hosted each year by Green Destinations to honour the innovative ‘Good Practice Stories’ presented by 100 stand-out locations across the world.

Stories each focus on the sustainable tourism practices that businesses and organisations have adopted to contribute towards making their destination a better place for the people and environment.

Last year, the Central Coast’s Good Practice Story won a highly-respected First Place under the ‘Destination Management’ category in the competition, making the Central Coast the only destination to represent Australia on stage at ITB Berlin 2024 in this international showcase of best practice in sustainable tourism strategies.

Along with being a certified ECO Destination with Ecotourism Australia since 2022, this latest announcement adds to the Central Coast’s ever-growing list of industry accolades in sustainable tourism.

The Central Coast has a diverse landscape of national park, state forest, bushland, open space and nature reserves, but stands out for its coastline fringed with over 40 beaches and interconnected waterways that flow throughout the 1,681km² area. Supporting the progress of the Central Coast Destination Management Plan 2022-2025, highlighting the development and promotion of water-based ecotourism experiences was key to this year’s story.

Top 100 judges praised our region’s winning Good Practice Story under the ‘Nature & Scenery’ category, titled ‘Waterways and Wildlife: Good turns to balance conservation and visitation’.

The story celebrated Central Coast Council’s achievement of being recognised by NSW government agencies for delivering the most successful Little Tern breeding program. This was declared after The North Entrance’s Karagi Point produced more fledglings over the last four breeding seasons than any other nest site in the State!

The story also celebrates the relaunch of The Entrance’s ‘Pelican Time’. Now an eco-friendly educational experience in the Central Coast’s much-loved holiday destination, in partnership with local marine wildlife experts, Marine Wildlife Rescue Central Coast.

Both the Little Tern Conservation Project and Pelican Time were made possible through collaboration-led project management and ongoing monitoring and resource allocation by Central Coast Council, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), Destination Central Coast and Marine Wildlife Rescue Central Coast (MWRCC), with the goals to:

• Raise awareness
• Encourage positive visitor behaviour
• Foster environmental stewardship.

The Central Coast's story shares with the world how it’s the small, people-powered gestures that make up one big movement toward creating a more sustainable destination! Finalist status in this competition four years running only confirms the NSW Central Coast is part of a global list of respected locations consistently committed to leading the way for sustainable tourism.

The Central Coast’s finalist story, as part of the global 2024 Top 100 List, is now available on the Green Destinations website.

Through an ongoing partnership between Destination Central Coast (of Central Coast Council) and Ecotourism Australia, the opportunity for the NSW Central Coast to participate in the Top 100 List for a fourth year was made possible.

Celebrating their 10th year, the Top 100 Stories run by Green Destinations, is an annual list of innovative and effective Good Practice Stories selected from 100 international destinations inspiring responsible tourism leadership, while also creating more attractive experiences for their community and travellers. Each destination has proactively submitted a unique Good Practice Story that details a sustainability project the destination is executing.

All destinations competing for a spot in the annual Top 100 are required to also meet a minimum level of compliance with certain core ECO criteria of the Green Destinations Standard, which the Central Coast achieved with ECO Destination Certification awarded by Ecotourism Australia in June 2022. The Top 100 Committee emphasises selection to the Top 100 list does not mean the destination is holistically sustainable, but pre-selected based on meeting that minimum level of compliance and the merit of their Good Practice Story - both of which the Central Coast successfully achieved.

Green Destinations is a Netherlands-based organisation working on the assessment, capacity building and certification of destinations and businesses committed to sustainable tourism. The competition is held under the auspices of the Top 100 Partnership, with special contributions by its partners.

A vital part of the Central Coast’s sustainability story is the success of the Little Terns breeding program, designed to protect these rare chicks that migrate to The North Entrance’s Karagi Point each summer for breeding.

Little Terns are an Australian native bird and the smallest Australian tern at just 20cm long! This species are mainly a coastal, so you can see why the Central Coast is their habitat of choice for breeding season with its endless beaches, lakes and lagoons.

With the Central Coast’s The Entrance being a much-loved holiday destination, we’re asking visitors to #SharetheShore. Extremely sensitive to human disturbance, both locals and visitors must do all we can in summertime to ensure the beautiful Little Terns feel welcome and remain comfortable at their chosen breeding location in The Entrance North. Previous disruptions have caused a rapid decline in their overall numbers and, unfortunately, they are now considered an Endangered species.

So, to protect this beautiful species, our story highlighted several ways visitors can help Little Terns. This involved visitor dispersal and visitor education techniques on the ground through face-to-face conversations, engaging storytelling, family-friendly activities, social media ads on responsible fishing, proactive safety and risk mitigation techniques, hosting pelican talks weekly (not daily), installing conservation fencing, interpretive on-site signage, deploying roving NPWS Discovery Rangers and planning site closures during large events.

Find out more

For years one of the most popular tourist attractions on the Central Coast was the free, public “feeding” of wild Pelicans in Pelican Plaza at The Entrance, drawing crowds of pit-stop coach tourists into the town centre, with limited flow on benefit to the local community – feathered or business owners.

To make this an enjoyable and sustainable experience for our marine wildlife, tourists and local businesses, the much-loved ‘Pelican Time’ at The Entrance was relaunched to be an eco-friendly educational experience, thanks to the partnership with local marine wildlife experts, Marine Wildlife Rescue Central Coast.

Pelican Time features FREE education talks covering interesting facts on pelicans, including care and rescue of pelicans in the wild, plus ways that we can all help protect pelicans and their environment by being waste wise when fishing and visiting this area of the Central Coast.

Now, our visitors and locals can experience seeing wild pelicans in their natural environment during their trip to The Entrance in a respectful and safe way.