Responsible Tourism at the Mountain House (August 2008)
This is a statement setting out how we think about, monitor and improve/minimise our impact on our Community, Environment and Guests.
We monitor consumption of power and attempt to balance client comfort against power savings - Almost all our lighting is Compact Fluorescent and we use timers for heating where appropriate.
The recycling station
Village rubbish cleanup
We monitor our waste disposal and have taken steps to improve our waste outcomes - In the absence of Council recycling, the Mountain House has started a town wide recycling scheme, which is paid for by the Community members and is housed at the Mountain House properties.
We are aware of what we are purchasing and endeavour to use recycled and natural products - our toilet paper and hand towels are recycled paper and we provide cotton hand towels as an alternative to these if you prefer a non-disposable alternative. Many of our cleaning/laundry products are organically based and highly biodegradable. Our firewood is non-native, sustainable, plantation and farm sourced pine, that is not suitable for timber production.
We consider Community involvement important and participate in Community activities and improvement - sponsoring the town recycling, participating in the local Fire Brigade, using our trampers shuttle to provide free transport for the local SAR team/Fire brigade.
We endeavour to support local Conservation/DOC activities - participating in the local Community Kiwi Recovery Programme, undertaking native plantings on our properties to support local bird life, and organise/participate in local clean-up days.
We try to include you, our guests in our efforts. You are able to participate in a small way in the local Community Kiwi Recovery Programme - see our Kiwi Listening poster or ask Bob or Nic about it. We also encourage feedback if you think we could do better. We keep an eye on what gets written in the Visitor books, there are Qualmark feedback forms in all our buildings, or you can have a chat to us!
