Landscape & Ecosystems
Everything is connected. Landscapes and ecosystems cover the surface of the earth, providing the canvas on which we live, work and play. Our interaction with this environment directly affects the health of the planet, and its capacity to support us. Profit versus preservation. Balance is everything.
Spending recreational time in nature is something golfers value at a deep level, whether they had a good day on the course or not.
Tamed and wild spaces
Great golf enhances landscapes and ecosystems - creating and sustaining beautiful and biologically rich open spaces - contributing to the resilience of the natural world. That’s good for the planet and helps to offset the impact of the industry’s consumption of resources. Maintaining biodiversity has always been close to the heart of the game. It's, "the balance between foul and fair ground that sets the greatest golf courses apart" as Peter Thomson, five-time winner of The Open Championship, said. As well as being integral to the challenge of the game, hazardous areas are fundamental to its sustainability. Golf can embrace the wild as much as the tamed.
Ecosystems are our planet's life support systems - purifying water, producing oxygen, regulating temperature and climate, recycling nutrients, providing food and vegetation, controlling erosion and providing species’ habitats. Golf can contribute to all of this and more, but only if a course is configured to find the best landscape and ecosystem fit for its local context. That requires understanding combined with innovation, and an acceptance that sympathetic development is essential for truly sustainable golf that truly profits all.
Learn how GEO Certified™ golf clubs are playing their part to enhance landscapes and ecosystems:
Highlands Country Club
Established in 1928 by the family of Grand Slam winner Bobby Jones, this Donald Ross designed course winds through the temperate rainforest of the high Appalachians. Today the club works closely with the Highlands Biological Station on ecosystem protection and enhancement, and is currently participating in a multi-year salamander research study.
Jockey Club Kau Sai Chau
The Jockey Club Kau Sai Chau has become an environmental sanctuary yet it is one of the busiest public golf clubs in the world. It’s popularity is due in part to the fact that it’s fine courses offer a rare ‘touch with nature’ in the urban setting of Hong Kong. Golfers share 250 hectares with eagles, barking deer, native boar, civet and porcupine.
Read the GEO Certified™ Report for JCKSC
