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Bartholomeus Klip Farmhouse is a certified member of Fair Trade Tourism – a not-for-profit company that promotes six principles of responsible tourism: fair share, fair say, respect, reliability, transparency, and sustainability.Our aspirations to contribute to a better, sustainable world, is at the heart of everything we do at BK.
Social development
Bartholomeus Klip Farmhouse was established in 1997 to provide skills development and employment for the women of our farmworker community residing on the farm. Up until this day, our hospitality teams – including our restaurant, house-keeping, and catering teams – are mainly made up of women that have stayed on the farm for many years. We are very proud to have contributed to the lives and education of these remarkable ladies! Meet the Bartholomeus Klip team
Community relief
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, we have turned our restaurant kitchen into a community soup kitchen in support of poor communities around us … read more about our Covid-19 relief efforts
Empty Suitcase Project
BK guests never fail to inspire and impress! Nicki Ray from Berkshire, England, for example, took the opportunity of visiting BK to support Rondeheuwel School near BK – for the second time! She asked friends and family to fill a suitcase with teddy bears, dollies, toy animals, and warm hats – many of them hand-crafted or knitted – as well as much needed stationery items and books. In addition, a collection of cash donations resulted in a little ‘pot of gold’ sufficient to fund Teaching Assistants for the School for this year, and a correspondence exchange with children in England was set up.
Low carbon footprint
Solar power generates a large part of our electricity, and fresh water is obtained from various springs in the mountains. A great deal of our kitchen produce is either grown or foraged at the farm – including home-grown vegetables, micro herbs, flowers and small garnish, seasonal decorative bulbs and blooms, almonds, sheep and Wagyu beef – or sourced locally – including olive oils and dairy, and regional wines.
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Nature conservation
Our commitment to the environment in general, and to conserve the biodiversity and ecological integrity of the Elandsberg Nature Reserve in particular, is the vision that drives our dedicated management of 10,000 acres of pristine private nature reserve with over 500 head of game, including eland, springbuck, black wildebeest, zebra and bontebok, baboons, bat-eared foxes, lynxes, reptiles, birds, and smaller species of antelope.
Bartholomeus Klip was awarded Silver in the Best for Wildlife Conservation category in the African Responsible Tourism Awards.The particular flora in the Elandsberg Nature Reserve is so special that it was formally declared a provincial nature reserve and Natural Heritage Site in 2008 in recognition of its importance to conservation. Bartholomeus Klip has signed up with Cape Nature’s Stewardship programme to safeguard the reserve in perpetuity.
Quagga Project
Elandsberg plays a central role in the official Quagga Project that has successfully managed to bring back an animal from extinction and reintroduce it into reserves in its former habitat.
Geometric tortoise rehabilitation project
Elandsberg pilots the protection and rehabilitation of the critically endangered Geometric Tortoise
elandsmontana
The reserve is a critical conservation area for two rare fynbos vegetation types, Swartland Alluvium Fynbos and Swartland Alluvium Renosterveld. Some of the flowering plants that grow at the Elandsberg Nature Reserve can only be found here. They include species that belong to the Amaryllis, Iris, Geranium, Mollugo, and Pea families. In fact, some of these species endemic to Elandsberg have formally been named elandsmontana.
