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Envirosafe Solutions keeps a careful eye out for those businesses and organisations and concerns that are forging new environmentally friendly practices in production, development and business modelling. Today, the focus is on one very forward thinking winery that is making a real mark on the Australian wine market and wine industry.

There’s nothing like a glass of good red with a meal.

But green wine?

Well…it’s not really green, but it is organic and environmentally sound. One winery is producing quality wine the eco-friendly way, and proving that quality production, an organic approach, and great wine can and do go together.

Tamburlaine Winery is Australia’s largest producer of organic wines and is situated in the Pokolbin district of the Hunter Valley in NSW as well as Orange on the Central Tablelands of NSW. James Halliday, one of Australia’s leading wine authorities, has bestowed it with a five star rating, indicating that quality and environmentally sound practices are now established hallmarks of great wine production.[1]

The Organic Approach

The organic approach to wine making means that the wine is produced without any synthetic herbicides, pesticides, fungicides or artificial fertilisers. Sulphur dioxide is used carefully in the process, and traditionally used wine additives “which are residual in the end product” are excluded.[2]

This approach has benefits across the board and Tamburlaine Wines lists a number of key advantages to organic farming methods for grape vine growing.

• It leads to sustainability by optimising humus in the soil
• The vines are supported and sustained by the natural fertility of the soil as opposed to synthetic fertilising products
• Significantly minimises need for irrigation as increased humus leads to increased water retention
• Eliminates harmful effects of farm chemicals on surrounding areas
• Eliminates possible wine toxins for the consumer
• Promotes and maintains healthy vineyard ecosystem.[3]

A Formal Environmental Management System

The Australian Government’s Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities states that an EMS “is a tool for managing the impacts of an organisation’s activities on the environment. It provides a structured approach to planning and implementing environmental protection measures.”[4]

Tamburlaine Winery developed and implemented a formal EMS in 2003, and this is now the underpinning foundation of their business system and their decision-making. It includes such practices as

• Sustainable farming practices
• Water management strategies
• Solid waste management
• Energy efficiency
• Environmental purchasing

Envirosafe Solutions supports the kinds of approach put forward by businesses and concerns such as Tamburlaine Winery. It strongly supports and promotes the need for environmental purchasing and believes smart business sources and utilises materials and products that are less damaging to the environment. Envirosafe Solutions believes a greener alternative can always be adopted, even in areas where there is an historical reliance on high toxicity products and materials. Products such as biodegradable cleaning liquids which are healthier for soil and land and water, and safer alternatives for harsher products are available from Envirosafe Solutions.

The Extreme Green team at Envirosafe Solutions may be able provide you with safer alternatives to the products you are currently using.

To find out more about the many products that are produced and supplied by Envirosafe Solutions, telephone 1300 889070

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[1] http://www.tamburlaine.com.au/public/aboutus.html

[2] http://www.tamburlaine.com.au/public/what-organic.html

[3] http://www.tamburlaine.com.au/public/what-organic.html

[4] http://www.environment.gov.au/land/management/ems/index.html

Every so often Envirosafe Solutions likes to take a look at the fauna of the world and how our animal friends are impacted by climate change and a denuding earth. Today, we focus on the beautiful and often much maligned bat.

How many of us think about bats when we think of “conservation”? Say the word “conservation” and our kids will rattle out the names of large exotic and magnificent animals such as the Tiger, Lion, Hypo, Panther, and so on.

In our often blinkered approach to supporting conservation it is often the smaller animals that are denied our love and support. Visit any fund raising event for animal habitat conservation and you will notice the absence of bats, dragon flies, owls and even butterflies in the glossy and otherwise informative leaflets. The fruit bats (Pteropus bats) are one such mammal that has been left out of most conservation projects. ¹ These cute little birdlike mammals fly in the night, have their fill and return to their roosting spots before day break. They usually stay away from humans (not surprising considering the racket we tend to make). Unfortunately, this aloofness keeps them out of our sight, out of our mind and might I add, out of most conservation projects.

Luxury and conservation don’t mix. Our hunger for wood and rate of consumption has fuelled deforestation at an alarming rate especially in the rain forest regions of Amazon and the Pacific region. ² Today we no longer see men chopping down trees using a pickaxe or a saw. The process of cutting down trees is so mechanized and speeded up that a visit to a tree cutting site would fill us with dread and a sense of the disaster that we are helping create.³ Forests with their fruit bearing trees are the prime source of food for fruit bats. When trees are chopped down there is nothing left to bind and hold the soil together. Movement of heavy tree cutting equipment further damages the soil and ensures no large trees ever grow there again. Unfortunately, forest mitigation, logging and conservation don’t mix – not because they can’t but simply because we don’t have the will to enforce laws to make it so. ⁴ A single large fruit bearing tree can aid conservation and provide enough food for hundreds of bats. Take away a hundred trees a day and the math reaches frightening proportions – especially when you consider that large scale unsupervised and often un-licensed tree cutting has been going on for many years now. ⁵

Some conservationists (instigated by logging companies?) have been blaming hunting and cyclones for the decimation of the bat population and failure of bat conservation attempts. However, men have been hunting bats for many hundreds of years and cyclones have been displaying their awesome destructive power even before the bats came into existence on this earth. The fact is, the bat population has been declining for the past decade and this coincides with the arrival of massive automated logging machinery and the large scale deforestation that followed.

Bats are part of the eco-chain and ecosystem. They help in pollinating flowers as well as carrying seeds to other locations and help spread the coverage of fruit bearing trees. Any school going child will tell you that if you break any part of the eco-chain the entire ecosystem will collapse. ⁶

Envirosafe Solutions urges you to consider the smaller and less prominent fauna on our planet. These animals form a vital part of our ecosystems and our food chains and are as needing and deserving of our understanding and support as the grand lion, the leopard, the white panda and the orang-utan. Use your liquid products wisely and consider using greener alternatives that respect our denuding earth. For more information on quality Extreme Green products please call Envirosafe Solutions on 1300 889070.

References

1. Wikipedia on Pteropus bats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pteropus

2.  Illegal logging in Asia-Pacific region: http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2011/03_illegal_logging_felbabbrown.aspx

3.  Mechanised logging. This location has good content, pictures and links for more information: http://www.snowwowl.com/rltreesclearcutting.html

4.  Forrest mitigation explained: http://climatetechwiki.org/technology/jiqweb-ar

5. Effects of deforestation: The site is poorly designed but the article is great: http://www.theguardians.com/Microbiology/gm_mbr10.htm

6.  Bats and the ecosystem: http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/res/Education_in_BLM/Learning_Landscapes/For_Teachers/science_and_children/caves/index/caves_bats.html