World Monument Fund and American Express Unveil Sustainable Easter Island Visitor Center

Thousands of eager people bounce over to Easter Island every year to visit one of Chile's most important <a href="http://inhabitat.com/china-plans-to-clone-the-entire-village-of-hallstatt-austria/hallstat-austria-unesco-village-3/">UNESCO-protected heritage sites</a>. But their desire to see hundreds of moia statues originally built between the 9th and 17th centuries AD to commemorate Rapa Nui ancestors comes with a grave environmental price. As part of their initiative to manage this tourism traffic, the <a href="http://www.wmf.org/sites/default/files/press_releases/Orongo%20Visitor%20Center%20Press%20Release.pdf">World Monument Fund (WMF)</a> teamed up with American Express to build a <a href="http://inhabitat.com/sun-moon-lakes-green-roofed-visitor-center-is-harmonious-in-its-surroundings/">supergreen visitor center</a>. Managed by <a href="http://www.conaf.cl/">CONAF</a>, the Centro de Recepción de Visitantes de la Aldea Ceremonial de Orongo showcases a bevy of the most advanced <a href="http://inhabitat.com/lessons-in-green-building-from-afghanistan%C2%A0/">sustainable building techniques</a>, and recently opened its cool, green doors.

The building is designed to showcase the most advanced sustainable building techniques.

Built around an existing warden station, most of the building materials were recycled.

The site gets so much tourism traffic that the environment is becoming degraded.

The new visitor center helps to mitigate that by providing much needed information about how to treat the UNESCO-protected heritage site.

WMF and CONAF, the managing authority, incorporated composting toilets and recycled rainwater systems into the design.

And receive power from small solar and wind generators.