Jordan Flagel, guest of the TREE podcast episode, photographed in nature

Podcast: Jordan Flagel | TREE

How do you go from being an athlete playing on varsity football and basketball teams in Canada and Europe to setting up your own ecotourism operation, which helps to conserve wildlife in both Guyana and Belize?

That’s the journey that our guest today, Jordan Flagel, has been on in his career so far. Jordan is the Executive Director and Founder of TREE whose mission is to provide life changing experiences in nature and actionable change in the environment. TREE stands for Tropical Rainforest Education and Exploration.

In this TREE podcast episode, Jordan shares his unique career story and we discuss the roles of ecotourism and community based activities to help wildlife conservation efforts. He also tells us about an upcoming trip in Guyana, April 2021, where you can join him on a trip of a lifetime.

If you have wanderlust and you love conservation, then you’re in the right place. Enjoy!

Would you like to experience the trip of a lifetime in Guyana? Discover TREE’s Ultimate Jungle Adventure, and get a special discount for Conservation Careers members using code ‘ecotourism’!

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Audio Transcript

Jordan   

My name is Jordan Flagel and I’m the Executive Director and Founder of TREE, which stands for Tropical Rainforest Education and Exploration.  

Nick   

Great. Welcome Jordan, nice to have you on the podcast. Thanks for joining us today. So TREE’s mission is a simple when I was reading on the website, just before we kind of joined the call today, its conservation through exploration, which immediately excites and engages me. Tell us a little bit about TREE. 

Jordan 

Yeah. So the main goal is to have adventures that are hopefully life changing or at least, you know, very impactful, and let people see what the natural world is like, especially in a time where we’re on Zoom all the time, we’re, you know, doing a lot of this digital and online work to really get into nature. And the way that I’ve set up TREE is that just by participating in these trips, you’re helping to contribute to conservation of these local areas, and particularly in tropical rainforests. And that’s why it’s called Tropical Rainforest Education Exploration. So basically learning, exploring, helping the areas you are going to and helping yourself grow and experience and hopefully walking away with an understanding of not just what it’s like to be there as a tourist, but also what it’s like for local people in these areas and what it’s like to really participate in conservation just by being on the trip. So that’s how they’re set up and that’s the goal. 

Nick   

Right, so if I came on one of your trips, what would I experience? Can you give me an example of a trip I might go on, the sorts of things that I you know, might get involved with?  

Jordan   

Yeah, I mean, we camp in the rainforest, tropical forest in Belize. There’s a nice spot we camp out there on the top of this mountain. You can hike down to waterfalls, we visit some caves. Go to see some Mayan ruins, some Mayan sites, go to the coast where we can see the largest Barrier Reef in the world that’s currently living because the Australian reef is in trouble right now. And that’s in Belize and in Guyana. We can go to the Iwokrama Forest which is kind of like a suburb of the Amazon. And there we can hike mountains, we can go down the river, we can see all kinds of wildlife. Some of the best wildlife I’ve seen anywhere in the world.  

Nick   

Like what?  

Jordan   

Giant caiman, giant river otters, there’s anacondas. I’ve never seen one but a lot of people I’ve worked with there have seen them. Jaguars, I saw two jaguars in one night, on my first day there, which was incredible. And yeah, there are tape eaters, just all kinds of wildlife. It’s incredible. And we basically just see all these things. But the key is that we use local vendors, and we use people that I’ve developed relationships with over the years. And that’s how I know that what we’re doing is contributing to not just conservation, but also sustainable development, because we want to make sure that we’re helping the local economic sustainability, which is a very big part of what we do, which is why we select who we work with. And that’s why I set up the trips where they are to be able to see certain places. So for instance, in Guyana and Belize both we stay in protected areas. And so by staying there, the money that we’re giving, to stay in these places, is helping Protected Area management, which is a big part of what we do. And yeah, TREE is actually based on my master’s thesis, which was how to use ecotourism to fund Protected Area management and conservation. So that’s what I based this whole thing off of. 

Nick   

Okay, so you want to kind of unite conservation and travel to benefit local people and wildlife on the ground is at the essence of it, basically. Yeah.  

Jordan   

Yeah.  

Nick   

So you did a master’s project looking at how you could do this. You’ve established TREE. Tell us about some of the practical steps on the ground and that you set up to try and ensure that your tools really do provide benefits because ecotourism is a big sector, it’s a diverse sector, it’s a bewildering, confusing sector, to be honest, as a tourist from the outside looking in. What have you done to ensure that TREE really does kind of, you know, provide a net positive benefit you know as a result of the tours that you run? 

Jordan   

I was very fortunate to work in Guyana at the Iwokrama centre. That was my first job after my undergrad. That’s where I went back to do my research for my masters. It was at Iwokrama Centre in Guyana, and it’s in the middle of the rainforest. So it’s literally a research station, like 12 hours from the city, down a dirt road. It’s incredible. That’s where I first learned about how ecotourism can fund protected area management because they were relying on donations that was around like 2008, when there’s a financial crisis, they you know, other countries had different priorities, and they were losing funding. So they thought, how can we bring funding in to make this thing run because it needs to be funded, because you need to have rangers that patrol the boundaries, you need to have training, you need to have all these things that like, conservation without funding is just conversation. That’s the thing that we used to say. I’m sure that’s everywhere. But we said that in Guyana, so I use that as a base. When I started these trips, I basically just partnered with Iwokrama and use their framework that’s already there, because they have a really well working programme. And then Belize I was also fortunate enough that after my masters, my first job I got was to work with student groups, in Belize for this NGO called Ecology Project International, where they take student groups into the forest to learn, do a lot of research, and basically just use the experience of this kind of travel and immersive experiential education to then take that back to either United States where they were from, or there was local Malaysian students that came and to use what they learned to implement into their schools or into their life. And that’s where I got to meet all of the vendors and all the places we stayed at. And I kind of used that same framework. So it’s not the same trip. But it’s the same people that we use for our transportation, the same places that we stay at, in some parts. Not exactly because we stayed at the University of Belize, the Research Institute on an island. We don’t stay there with TREE trips. But we do stay at a  few of the eco lodges that we know are actually sustainable from getting to know the people that run them, and they’re locally owned. So like, to me, that’s a big thing. It’s not just about the environmental sustainability, it’s the economic sustainability. So making sure that, you know, we’re not just paying for somebody that owns these places that lives in, you know, Turkey or somewhere that is not involved in local community, and is not part of that. That economic sustainability is very important, because then from that you can have environmental sustainability, because you need that funding right? You need that local participation.  

Nick 

Yeah. And what I’m hearing there is this localness. This is really important local people supporting local businesses. Why is that so important? Is it because it provides direct benefits to conserving the wildlife? 

Jordan   

It’s because it’s the base. And if you don’t have that local participation, and that economic sustainability, then you cannot have true environmental sustainability, you need the people to be a part of it. A big part of sustainability and conservation that isn’t talked about as much is culture. You can’t just come in from a you know, the United States or Canada, or the UK or wherever, and just and just come in and say, we’re going to save this forest, or we’re going to do this, that’s a very, I think, outdated, or even like kind of a saviour mentality thing where it has to be with and for and of the local people. And I mean, tropical rainforests are important for the whole world. Their importance is global, even though they’re located long, basically on either side of the equator up to the tropic lines. We all benefit from them, and the people that live there and are from there, and their culture is there, it’s very important. And to not just say, you need to stop doing this, or you need to do this or that you need to work with everybody there. If you’re a visitor or like me, who’s lived there for a while and kind of been an adopted citizen, you need to work with and understand the culture and embrace that. And you know, without that, there’s just no other way that you can do it in a truly sustainable way and actually contribute to what real environmental sustainability is. It just makes everything better when local people are able to participate and are able to make a living out of that and are able to not just get by, but be an actual part of it and be stakeholders have a say in their own land. That’s the base, that’s the most important thing of all. So that’s what we really try to do and not you know, just come in from other places and make money off of it. It’s about everybody who’s working with TREE in these areas has an equal stake and benefits from it and then from that the environment benefits and wildlife benefits.  

Nick   

Have you seen example of you know wildlife and environment benefit as a result of this approach to tourism. People seeing I don’t know perhaps more jaguars but you know, other wildlife that is now more better protected as a result of these sorts of trips.  

Jordan 

Actually, that’s a great example. In Belize, there’s the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Preserve, and Jaguar Sanctuary. So when you go there to camp, you can go there and do river tubing and all these things, and you pay a fee, which goes directly to the  Audubon Society to help conserve that area. And so that’s a great example of being set up for the wildlife specifically. In Guyana you also have the Iwokrama forest, which is a million acres. It’s in the centre of the rainforests along the Essequibo River and that’s where I first learned about this kind of approach. And that’s where they went to using ecotourism to help fund it when they were losing the funding from the other countries. And it’s been working really well, you know, pre COVID anyways, where they can fund the monitoring, they can fund the outreach in education. And they can have student groups come in from Georgetown from the capital or from other parts of Guyana, and student groups coming from the US, Canada, UK and all contribute to the conservation of this land that has been set aside. And it’s so important because just outside of the Iwokrama boundary, there are mining claims, because there’s a lot of gold in Guyana. And gold mining is much worse than logging. Because logging, you can at least replant, can do it sustainably, you can do selective timber harvesting. But gold mining really scars the environment and makes it very, very hard to come back from if at all. So the fact that this exists in the centre of Guyana is so important, because you’re not allowed to do anything, no small scale gold mining, no unauthorised logging, even hunting fishing, there’s one indigenous village that lives within the boundaries and they’re allowed to do that, you know, as a means to sustain themselves. Like, again, back to the cultural aspect. And I believe that is totally fine because that is a sustainable way to do it. But there’s no commercial logging, there’s no commercial fishing. And the gold mining, like I said, is the worst thing for the environment in that area. You know, gold mining can bring a lot of money to certain people could possibly help the country, if, you know employs enough people or whatever, but it’s not good for the environment. And I don’t think there’s any evidence that it will help the entire country benefit economically. So I think that’s an example of why it’s so important and also how its funded largely in part through tourism. 

Nick   

Yeah, and the tourism industry and even the ecotourism industry, nowadays, we’re talking billion dollar plus industries, you know, and if a portion of that flows down to communities and protects the environment as a result, then you can be conserved into perpetuity. You can sort of see the long term benefits there, which is wonderful. You know someone who hasn’t travelled for a long time now we’re in COVID, as we’re recording both of us. And when people are starting to book tours again, next year and beyond, and life hopefully returns to normal, it’s very hard to make confident choices as a tourist to know that the provider you’re going with is a good provider, and they’re going to provide benefits to people and wildlife. They’re going to educate their guests and do all the things that you’d hoped a good provider would be doing. What sort of questions should people ask when booking tours? Or what sort of red flags to avoid the poor providers, if you like, you know? Just walk us through the decision process from a tourist perspective to ensure that they book tours figured. 

Jordan   

Yeah, I think you kind of need to vet if there’s, you know, either locally owned and operated or using locally owned and operated accommodations and vendors. And also see a big thing is that a lot of companies claim to be sustainable. I actually used to work for like a corporation, a travel company in a very short time and I remember seeing a list somewhere, they were listed as a sustainable tourism operator. And I just remember thinking that is that cannot be true. It was the most unsustainable thing. The amount of plastic and the amount of waste and the way that you know, for one guest who came on a trip wanted to go back somewhere, you take this giant van and have to drive them just. It was great experience and it was a great form of tourism and travel. But it was not sustainable. For me, it’s very frustrating when you work very hard, like TREE does to be a truly sustainable organisation to see other ones just claim that and then get notoriety as being sustainable. And other people see that list and go, oh, I can take that, it’s sustainable, and it’s not. So yeah, you definitely need to do your own research and see. It’s kind of difficult, because, you know, you should be able to take that list at face value and go, yeah, everything on this list is good because, you know the author should have done their research and found out if these outfits actually do work in a sustainable way. But that’s not always the case. So I mean, yeah, you got to do a little bit of research, the best thing to do I think would be talk to whoever’s running it. In the case of TREE like myself, being the Executive Director, the Founder, but also my Belizean partner Emil if anyone wants to reach out to him. And he’s actually spoke to a lot of people because he’s Belizean. So they want to hear from him. Like, what’s the real deal? Is this actually what it claims to be? Yeah, so it’s really important to really reach out and speak with people. 

Nick   

And you encourage those conversations, that process, something about to your provider you want to hear from tourists beforehand, you’re happy to answer questions, and I guess maybe a red flag is if a provider isn’t that open and doesn’t want to have those conversations then maybe think twice? 

Jordan   

Yeah, like I really encourage even if you don’t want to come on a TREE trip, we have on our website saying if you want to just discuss conservation or travel or whatever, just send us an email, we’ll talk to you or even point you in the right direction. Like if you want to go to wherever, go through Central America, we can at least give you some pointers and stuff and not that we’re the one stop shop or end all be all for everything to do with you know, tropical rainforest, but we have a lot of experience and we can at least maybe help point in the right direction or just, I love talking to people, that are interested about it because it shows that you know, there’s a genuine interest or you know, they care. The best thing about ecotourism, especially in tropical rainforest, is you get to help the environment but you get to have the best experience in your life. I mean, jumping off waterfalls, and going into caves, and there are no people around, it’s truly exploration. I mean, you’re there, and you’re just away from people a lot of the time. A lot of time, we’re the only people within miles and that is a feeling you don’t get very often nowadays, especially somewhere so beautiful and with such an impact. Every time I go there into the forest, I get the same feeling. It doesn’t go away. And to me, that’s incredible. 

Nick   

That sounds amazing. Yeah. Where’s your favourite place to visit? Have you got a favourite spot, whether it’s TREE related or otherwise? 

Jordan   

There’s a place in Belize. It’s kind of like a rural area, but it’s not the dense forest but it’s very close to that. So you’re a quick drive to go up into the Cockscomb Basin, the wildlife sanctuary, where you can hike and camp and go down the river tubes. You’re also about a 30 minute drive from the coast. So you can go to the beach and even take a boat up to the islands. Right now or even in the near future, I’d love to kind of have that as a base. As far as just enjoying though there’s an island in Belize called Caye Caulker and it got split in two by a hurricane and on the edge of the Split is my favourite place in the world. It’s just a place where everyone goes to hang out. You meet people, you can meet friends, you can go free diving right there. You can just go swim in the water or you can you know have some rum, whatever. That’s probably my favourite place in the world. And then, Spain is my favourite place to visit when I’m just in the, you know, enjoying the normal life I guess not the, not being in the jungle. 

Nick   

That sounds great. I hope we can visit all these places again soon. They sound good. I feel excited for you. So let’s talk a bit more about you then Jordan. You’ve got such an interesting history when I’ve kind of read around. You’ve been an athlete in your past, right with basketball and you call it football. We call it American football, I guess on my side of the pond. Tell us about your key career steps today. Like what have been the major turning points that got you to where you are?  

Jordan   

Yeah, so my dad was a professional Canadian football player. He was an Olympic hopeful athlete as well, who’s very fast, incredibly fast runner. And he actually made it to a university to play football based on his speed only. He didn’t even play in high school. He just he went with a friend that played, who we ran track with, and he got a scholarship out of running very fast. And he played for 10 years. That was in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where I was born. And then we moved to Calgary when he signed here to play. And then yeah, I was like four years old when he finished. And I grew up playing basketball because he also loved basketball. And I had a lot more interest to go to university for football and basketball. I guess I was just built for it. You know, it was just kind of genetic. I ended up going to the states for one year to play football. But I came back to Canada when I was offered to play football and basketball because basketball is my, you know more of my passion. And so I did that for four years in Calgary. Yeah, it was incredible. We won a conference championship. I was the only person to win for two sports in the same year because we won for football and basketball. Sports is my entire life. And then I had a knee injury, not a serious one, but one that just kind of, you know, sapped me of my athleticism. And I saw the way that the coaches and even you know other teammates and everybody else kind of treated me different. I wasn’t as important anymore. That was a kind of like a welcome to reality moment. And that’s why I decided, okay, I need to take school a bit more seriously, because I don’t think anyone else is going to have my back. And also, once I’m not athletic, I can’t really do much with this. So I kind of explored what my passion was. And I it’s strange, because I grew up in a city and I never went camping or anything. I was not very outdoorsy. But I love watching documentaries about the Amazon. I loved the idea of being in nature. And I was just scared or had no access to it. And I took a class on sustainable development. And it was about the Banff National Park, which is right by Calgary. And I just love the idea of what sustainability is. of not using more than we have. I don’t know being a part of the environment without ruining it. It just really spoke to me and so I went down that path and I specialised in sustainable development. I ended up taking a mini study abroad where I went to Spain, Italy and Greece and we studied the sustainability of the Mediterranean. I took some classes on adventure tourism. It was the most fun degree you could possibly do. We were outside all the time. I finally got to be out. We’re doing like these kind of camping trips and we studied this one lake with like water sampling and mapping and it was amazing. So I finished my undergrad very happy with that and I got the job in Guyana. It was actually a CIDA funded which is the Canadian International Development Agency and I was scared to death. I was actually having anxiety over it. I was going to live in the middle of the Amazon at a research station and I’d only been camping a few times in my life. It was almost too much. That was when I saw two jaguars my first night. I got lost by myself two days in. I went for a walk down one of the paths and I went off the path somehow, and I barely found my way back. It was terrifying. I drank a cup full of fire ants, because they got into the juice. And I didn’t know. And I thought it was seed. So, you know, they were biting all the way down my throat on my tongue and I ate a bush rat, I thought it was beef. But it was a lava, which is a rodent that is in the jungle. It changed my life though, it changed everything. That first six months I was there just flipped, where I knew my life was going to be different going forward. And so I went to do my masters programme after that my thesis was in back in Guyana, the same place. And what I really wanted to find out was how can we make ecotourism to help fund conservation, but have it real ecotourism in a sense that we’re not going to ruin these places, because the best thing about them is how natural they are, and how wonderful it is to see places that aren’t touched by humanity, at least to a degree where it’s altering things. So my big formula, my big equation that I came up with was, at what point can you make the most money to fund the conservation without tipping and degrading the environment, I made this big formula, it was like a page long, it took in all the factors considerations, and it ended up being about a quarter capacity. So if you had no more than a quarter capacity all the time, you would get enough funding to run everything you needed and you wouldn’t overrun the resources and degrade the environment. So that’s kind of what TREE was based on without knowing it because after that I went to work in Belize. And with this NGO, taking student groups out. That was incredible, and got to explore that country. And I spent more time there. I was there for two years and had this idea that I needed to do this for the rest of my life to be in these places. Towards the end of my time in Belize I came up with the idea of TREE and I made the website and it was just kind of a backburner thing for a while. I also included Jamaica. I spent a lot of time there. And I made a really good friend who’s like a family friend now. And he’s part of JUTA, which is the Jamaican Union, I think its Taxi Associates. It’s basically like a formal tourism operator licence. And so I work with him and he kind of helps lead the trips when we go there. There’s less demand to go to Jamaica, I think people see that more as like a holiday place where you go spend time in a resort. But it is an incredible island with a lot of biodiversity and a lot of nature. And it’s just beautiful. I hope more people want to go there in the near future, but Belize and Guyana seems to be, the most demand is there.  

Nick   

It’s interesting how you talk about particularly, when you kind of pulled your formula together. It feels like you’re sort of trying to balance profit and purpose. You know you are trying to develop a business which is going to sustain in its own right, it needs to make money otherwise, it’s just a conversation like you said earlier. I’m interested, like, you know, how have you found the process of setting up an organisation like TREE? Has it being what you expected? What have been some of the particular challenges around that? And what should people bear in mind, if they’re thinking about doing something themselves? 

Jordan   

Well, the good thing is, it’s hard to overshoot, and to cross that kind of boundary they have on the formula, because it’s hard to get people to spend a lot of money to go on trips. So there’s kind of like a built in limit. It’s a big deal. Like, these are amazing experiences. But also people have finite resources where they can spend and they have to decide like, if they get one holiday, it’s like do I want to take it in the middle of the jungle or do I want to go to the beach, like there’s a lot of things to take into consideration. One of the things I found about setting it up, that’s been very difficult, or something I didn’t anticipate is how digital marketing and you know, that whole digital presence, how much that matters. The first few trips we did were all with people that I’ve met in person, whether it was at conferences, or even on the street, or whatever. I talked about what I did, and they loved it, and they decided to come on trips. And early on, it was more of like a trip when you want and I’ll tailor it around when you want to go and I would go with like, you know, two or three people at a time. And it was good, but it wasn’t a great you know, business model. And it was great for these people. But I wanted to expand it and have it more of you know, these kinds of trips that were going so people can come and meet other people on the trip instead of coming with just the people that they sign up with. And so, I shifted that but I’m finding that the yeah, the whole digital presence and digital marketing. I had no idea how important that would be. And early on I was actually working with, there was somebody who was working with TREE and she was doing that, was building this kind of digital presence. And I was like, we can’t afford this. The return on this won’t be good. It was costing a lot of money. And I was like this is not getting to people directly because that’s when I was speaking more to people in person. And she was just so right. But a year after that is when I realised like yeah, we actually really need that. Without that you can’t do much because you need the credibility, you need the reach. 

Nick   

And what do you mean by digital marketing? What does she do?  

Jordan   

Yeah, the social, the email, videos of our trips, like all that kind of stuff, and basically spending time, resources and money on this that doesn’t directly get people to come but it does create that awareness and showing that you know TREE is actually a company that is not only doing well but it’s trustworthy. It’s also very visible and there’s a lot of people that are taking part in it because people don’t want to you know, go with a tour operator or a, you know, business that isn’t bringing a lot of people on trips. They want to make sure that oh, yeah, they know they’re doing it. They’ve a lot of experience doing this. And we do now. I mean, it’s been going for over three years. But we need to show that. Because I don’t like social media myself, like, I wish to not use it ever again. But you know, it’s important to have Instagram because we, especially with where we go, it’s so photogenic. We need to show that where we’re going, it’s so beautiful and so amazing. And pictures will never capture it. But it needs to be at least the base. We can’t just have words. It needs to be some photo evidence. 

Nick   

Yeah, exactly and words alone aren’t quite enough. Yeah, with a video can really take people to these places. Yeah. It’s been really nice talking to you and getting to know you, Jordan, and I’m sure we’ll stay connected going forward. And I hope to come on one of your trips one day, I’d love to come in and experience what you do through TREE. It sounds amazing. I’m excited hearing about it and listening to it. We usually end up by saying, you know, how can people get involved and find out more, but I know you’ve got a trip coming up next year in Guyana in early April. So COVID willing, you know, that looks like a fantastic opportunity that’s coming down the road, if people want to hear a bit more about that. What could people experience if they chose to look at the trip in Guyana? 

Jordan   

Yeah. Well, I hope you can come on that trip actually. I know you’d love it. I think it would be worth it. Yeah. COVID willing that the thing is with COVID in these countries is that where tourism is a large part of their industry like in Belize it’s the biggest industry. They’re going to do everything they can to stay open for COVID, because they’ve been shut since March and have opened up recently, both Guyana and Belize. And it was so devastating that it was starting to erode at the whole structure of the country without having any tourists. So they’re going to do everything they can, you know, short of there being massive outbreaks and going totally out of control to stay open. So with that, we’re confident that the trip will go forward in April. And we also will offer a full refund to anybody if you know the country’s closed, and there’s no way to travel, obviously. Or we can keep that for a later date if we postpone it either way. It would be totally up to everyone who signs up. But yeah, you can go to our website. It’s treexploration.com and you can click there. It has the 2020 trips and the 2021 trips. Our 2020 trips all got cancelled or postponed. So the next one we’re going to do we’re going to focus on is the one in April, yeah, April 3-9 2021, in Guyana. Yeah, basically, it’s going to be six days in the jungle, seeing one of the biggest waterfalls in the world, hiking the mountaintops, going down the river, seeing wildlife, and really helping local communities there. And not just like donating, really being a part of it. And I don’t know if I really got that across earlier but for me, the best thing about being there in the actual communities in the interior is that I just feel so like, I’m actually a part of being there, like an equal. Do you know what I mean? Like, yes, I have my Canadian passport. And it’s different, because I can just if I want to just leave, but it’s like, while we’re there while we’re in the forest, we’re just people, and we’re just the same. And to me, that’s just the most important thing. And just like the, I don’t know how to explain it. But I just feel like that’s kind of something you don’t experience all the time, especially when you’re in a city and it’s all about kind of status, and it’s all about who makes more money or whatever. And there’s just like human beings all hanging out together. And I love that. And I would spend more time there if I could. I love being there and I love that. I don’t look at it, like you’re giving money to people who need money type of thing. It’s you’re experiencing and living for a short period of time, this experience with other people. And that’s all it is. There’s nothing more to it than that. And by doing that, you get to help the community, you get to help the land and you get to help the protected area just by participating. That’s our goal with our trips and that’s the kind of thing you can expect. 

Nick   

That sounds great. Yeah. And you get to have a good time. Right, well, that’s wonderful. Well, if people want to find out more, as you said its treexploration.com. You can find the trip on there and you’re very kindly offering 10% off for the listeners of the podcast and conservation careers audience. So if you put ecotourism in, I think that’s right is the code and people can save 10% on that trip. So yeah, check it out. Jordan, it’s been wonderful talking to you it really has. I’m sure we’ll stay connected. Good luck with TREE and it seems like you’re going in a really exciting direction. Thanks for coming on the podcast. 

Jordan   

Thank you, Nick. I really appreciate it. 

Nick   

Okay, well I hope you enjoyed that everyone. If you did then please do hit that subscribe button to get notified when new episodes are live and also give the ratings it really helps us to get in front of more people. If you enjoy the interviews, we’ve collected the best advice from over 400 professional conservationists into a free eBook, which you can download from the bottom of our website. And finally, if you’ve got any questions or suggestions for the podcast, please tweet them to @ConservCareers. We’d love to hear from you. Okay, till next time, guys, this is Nick signing out. 

Careers Advice, Podcast, Senior Level, Educator, Organisational Manager, Scientist, Community Conservation, Ecotourism, Sustainability, Wildlife