DESTINATION FEATURE | Cape Town
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Stellenbosch Wine Route
embraces environmental practices Reaffirming the importance of sustainable environmental practices, Stellenbosch Wine Routes recently signed the Porto Protocol, committing the leading wine route in South Africa to an accelerated contribution towards climate change mitigation.
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aunched by former US President Barack Obama in 2018, the Porto Protocol is a global sustainable initiative signed by companies across numerous industries. These have pledged to play their part in employing and sharing sustainable environmental practices to combat climate change. “Stellenbosch Wine Routes become the first Southern Hemisphere wine region to join the ranks of global signatories of the Porto Protocol, all of which have committed to accelerating their focus and efforts, guiding their activity by good environmental practice principles and executing projects oriented towards the sustainability of the region,” said Mike Ratcliffe, chairman of Stellenbosch Wine Routes. “As the leading wine tourism destination in South Africa, Stellenbosch recognises the leadership role it must play on climate change issues. We are committed as the entire wine and tourism ecosystem of Stellenbosch to lead the way in environmental protection and to foster
Wine Routes aimed at sustainability, good environmental principles among biodiversity and conservation include the all our stakeholders,” Mr Ratcliffe said. Integrated Production of Wine, a voluntary The recent launch of Visit Stellenbosch, a new Destination Marketing Organisation sustainability scheme established by the South African wine industry in 1998, (DMO), unifies all Stellenbosch tourism WWF Conservation Champions and the stakeholders under one umbrella with establishment of three large conservancies the objective of growing the tourism in Stellenbosch, including the Greater and experience economy in Simonsberg Conservancy, the Stellenbosch for the benefit Bottelary Hills Conservancy and of all communities. the Banhoek Conservancy. “Central to that Adrian Bridge, chief mandate is ensuring that executive officer of Taylor’s Stellenbosch is known Port and chairman of the Porto as a place where people Protocol, highlights the wine come to discover, learn, industry’s role in leading from create, start up, launch and the front to mitigate the harmful bring into being. This is a Mike Ratcliffe, chairman impact of climate change. destination that pioneers of Stellenbosch “The wine industry suffers innovative and scalable Wine Routes. directly from climate change high-impact solutions to and is therefore well placed tackle pressing, social, to lead the movement aimed at finding economic and environmental issues. solutions towards a better environment. We have a responsibility to confront the We are all responsible and we cannot biggest issues,” Mr Ratcliffe added. afford to waste any more time. We Among the initiatives already being need to act now,” Mr Bridge said. employed by members of Stellenbosch
