Oprah Winfrey is headed to an Australian rainforest for an upcoming special on her meeting with an Aboriginal tribe, which will draw national attention to their culture and spirituality. The Kuku Yalanji consider themselves true rainforest people who live in harmony with the environment. Their culture has always involved a deep respect for nature and an intimate knowledge of its cycles.

Oprah will head to a rainforest in Northern Australia to feature 16-year-old Tahlia Burchill, one of three Kuku Yalanji women interviewed by Oprah for a segment entitled Beauty Around the World. Apparently, the talk show queen is “blown away by her.”

Tahlia was recommended to Oprah’s company Harpo Productions for the segment by Terry Maloney, who with his wife Cathy runs Daintree EcoLodge and Spa, an award-winning eco lodge, which employs Kuku Yalanji people on its staff and incorporates indigenous knowledge into its spa treatments, art classes and interpretive walks.

Airplanes contribute about 3% of global carbon emissions, and people traveling by air is actually increasing at about 5% a year, meaning numbers of air-passenger miles will more than triple by 2030. When you consider the amount of carbon being pumped into the atmosphere by these thousands of flights, it’s not just leaving a bigger carbon foot print when you travel regularly; it’s more like putting on a pair of boots made of carbon, and kicking the planet in the face. Repeatedly.

But some of us can’t imagine giving up traveling! If you’re like me and concerned about how your travels will affect the environment and local economies, there’s no better way to control the impacts of your trip than planning the trip with the environment in mind. Search a directory of global destinations at Planeta.com, or, if you already know where you want to go, find a hotel that meets the standards of the Green Hotels Association.

If you’re traveling by plane, car or bus you can lessen the blow by offsetting your travel emissions. Making a donation to renewable energy initiatives, you can counterbalance some of the effects of greenhouse gases that were released during your trip. Web sites like Climate Care have carbon calculators that will determine your atmospheric footprint and how you can offset it.

Hopefully airplanes and other vehicles will soon operate with greener, more eco-friendly sources of energy. A British study group, OMEGA (Opportunities for Meeting the Environmental Challenge of Growth in Aviation) is studying a number of technological and other factors, including airplane design, sustainable fuels and open rotor-propelled aircraft that reduce fuel burn, to assess how they could mitigate aircraft pollution.