Alpine
community action
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Mountains,
snow gums, clean air, and pristine alpine views are vital
to the alpine community. Alpine area managers and snow-related
industries know that the natural environment in which they
operate is their greatest asset and are continually striving
to minimise their ecological impact. And snow is, of course,
an essential ingredient for winter sports, as well as the
alpine environment.
Alpine
area managers and snow-related industries know that climate
change will place great pressure on the alpine environment
- and they have decided to take a leadership role in doing
something about it.
While the
alpine industry produces a relatively small level of greenhouse
gas emissions, it has put in place an array of environmental
programs that are evidence of how tangible action can help
reduce such emissions and thus make a difference to long
term climate change.
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Some of
the action around the resorts
For a number of years Falls Creek has been running their unique
"A Tree From Me" regeneration scheme. The program allows
visitors to the Falls Creek resort to sponsor the planting of
native vegetation on the mountain and offset the greenhouse gas
emissions generated by their travel.
Falls
Creek has signed up to the national EcoBuy program - an initiative
that aims to stimulate demand for greenhouse friendly and recycled
products.
In addition,
Falls Creek has recently become the world's first alpine-based
organisation to be benchmarked by Green Globe - the international
certification program for ecologically and socially sustainable
tourism. In three of the seven criteria benchmarked by Green Globe,
Falls Creek was found to be operating at or above world's best
practice.
At Perisher
Blue a number of measures have been implemented to assist
the environment including installing harmonic filters to the Ridge
Quad Chairlift to save on energy consumption and a new fuel management
system to monitor fuel use.
Another Perisher
Blue initiative is putting in place an Environmental Management
System (EMS) which provides a framework for assessing the impact
on the environment of resort activities, setting goals and targets
for improving environment management performance and monitoring
and communicating the outcomes.
And of course
Skitube access to Perisher Blue means that visitors do
not have to drive up the mountain to the Perisher Range. Staff
are encouraged to use the Skitube to access the resort whenever
possible, and in 2003 a requirement was introduced that staff
travel on the Skitube during peak periods. From 2006 all Charlotte
Pass snow season overnight visitors will also be required
to use the Skitube - with overnight parking not permitted at Perisher.
Charlotte
Pass is also developing an Environmental Management System
(EMS) and an Environment Policy.
Mt Baw
Baw has adopted a climate change policy and is in the process
of replacing its 2-stroke snowmobiles with 4-stroke engines and
is evaluating car pooling for staff.
At Mt
Hotham, the Management Board is installing a system to recycle
wastewater for snowmaking, rather than pumping from Swindlers
Creek, thus saving energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
An innovative
program of using infra-red thermography to locate energy leakage
points in buildings is being developed at Mt Buller. The
imagery will be used in conjunction with energy audits to assess
retrofitting viability.
A Green building
approach has been put into action at Lake Mountain where
the new resort centre has adopted energy efficient design principles:
with building aspect, multi-level layout for efficient heat flow,
reduced building footprint and reuse of waste heat from electricity
generation - saving approximately $80,000 to $100,000 in energy
costs each year and consequently create significant greenhouse gas
reductions.
The Australian
Snow Sports Industry has combined forces and has drafted an
Australian Alpine Industry Climate Change Policy that covers advocacy,
mitigation and adaption approaches to the challenges of climate
change. For more details visit the Australia
Ski Areas Association web site..
And many
alpine area managers and snow-related industries have signed up
to the Keep Winter Cool Charter.
The good
news is that the alpine community is making a difference.
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