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How diversity is lost

Intensive agriculture and climate change: a recent study from Austria shows how much influence both have on the loss of biodiversity in Alpine regions.

Strange but true...

Point of view: For glaciers without a circus

The largest glacier ski resort in the Alps is to be built in Tyrol, Austria - on already melting glaciers. The planned connection of the ski areas in Pitztal and Ötztal goes against all reason, says Kaspar Schuler, Co-Manager of CIPRA International.

Alpine Spheres: Natural limits - Infinite possibilities

Conference documentation CIPRA Annual Conference 2017

Open letter on transit traffic: CIPRA demands toll increase

Rethinking spaces

A picnic at a construction site, the rescue of undeveloped land and the conversion of an old barracks: three examples that rethink spatial planning in the Alps.

Keeping free spaces free

How an association in Vorarlberg, Austria came up with the idea of buying land in order to save it from being built on.

The future of the Alps begins now

What will the Alps of tomorrow look like? This question and political demands for the XV Alpine Conference lay at the heart of the “AlpWeek Intermezzo” held at the beginning of April in Innsbruck, Austria.

Time and skills as capital

Why you can pay not only with cash but also with talents in Vorarlberg, Austria.

Sustainable Tourism: Who will do the job?

There is no shortage of ideas when it comes to sustainable tourism in the Alps. But who will take charge of networking these ideas? In early November CIPRA International invited experts from all the Alpine countries to attend a workshop in Innsbruck, Austria in order to jointly develop a job profile.

Building – a bottomless pit?

Whether it is a question of major projects or infrastructure developments in protected areas – Alpine countries such as Austria and Switzerland cannot build quickly or easily enough.

The Brenner Pass: transit trouble

The year 2017 saw record numbers of trucks crossing the Brenner Pass. Now there is an opportunity to find a solution to the problem.

What now for the Alpine strategy?

Since January, the Austrian federal state of Tyrol has been chairing the European strategy for the Alps. This year will see a decision on how the strategy will be implemented in practice.

Awards for attractive, well-built constructions

At the end of October 2017 in Bern, Switzerland, Constructive Alps crowned the winning projects, demonstrating that Alpine architecture can not only be pleasing on the eye, but sustainable too.

The Alps as the focus of climate policy

Temperatures in the Alps are rising faster than the global average. The search for solutions is not limited to the World Climate Conference being held in Bonn, Germany.

Society’s demands mark the landscape

Conflicting needs and exaggerated expectations collide when it comes to spatial planning. Its role needs to be rethought, with a move away from overall planning and a shift towards guidance and awareness-raising. This was the tenor of the CIPRA Annual Conference held on 29 and 30 September 2017 in Innsbruck, Austria.

Society’s demands mark the landscape

Conflicting needs and exaggerated expectations collide when it comes to spatial planning. Its role needs to be rethought, with a move away from overall planning and a shift towards guidance and awareness-raising. This was the tenor of the CIPRA Annual Conference held on 29 and 30 September 2017 in Innsbruck, Austria.

A wind of change for municipalities

At the Nagelfluhkette Nature Park/A, young people are teaching primary schoolchildren for a day. Together, they study water courses as a habitat for plants and animals. In l’Argentière-la-Bessée/F, another group is creating an adventure trail to the entrance of a silver mine.

Space is finite

In 2016 CIPRA examined spatial planning from various perspectives. With the alpMonitor project for instance, it demonstrated under the Spatial Planning rubric how such processes can be tackled at the municipal level and what the potential stumbling blocks might be.

Mobility as a state of mind

“People very quickly forget about a traffic jam providing it doesn’t lasts longer than ten minutes.” 140 pairs of eyes were focused on the speaker Gerhard Fehr. At the international symposium on commuter mobility in Hard, Austria, in mid-November, Mr Fehr, a behavioural economist, was showing his audience why the choice of means of transport is often not a rational decision.

The Alpine Rhine fête

CIPRA Liechtenstein. Taming Europe’s biggest torrent began some two hundred years ago. Today, the Alpine Rhine is a canal, its course lined for the most part by intensively used farmland and residual pockets of wetland forest.

Reliable partnerships right across the Alps

CIPRA Austria, CIPRA Germany, CIPRA South Tyrol. Right now the cable car industry is all about superlatives. Indeed, the “world’s greatest glacier ski area” is to be created by linking up the ski resorts in the Austrian Pitztal and Ötztal valleys.

No ski-lift connection permitted in nature reserve

The Federal State of Upper Austria gave its legal opinion on the expansion of the “Höss-Wurzeralm” ski area in April. The matter is now on file.

speciAlps

[Project completed] Grasslands, marshes, hedges, biotopes and woods are examples of natural treasures and biological diversity that are of great value to alpine regions and municipalities. Not only do they offer a habitat for plants and animals, but also humans value functioning natural areas for their attractiveness and the quality of life they offer. Nevertheless, –these areas have much more potential than we often realise and there is much more every municipality can do!

Transit traffic: a partial success on the Gotthard Pass

The Gotthard Pass has seen a historic low in transalpine goods traffic since the adoption of the law governing the modal shift. In contrast, the number of trucks crossing the Brenner Pass continues to increase.

Open Alps 2017

The end of 2016 saw the announcement of the winners of the 2017 “Open Alps” human rights award. This honour is given to individuals or groups who actively work for the rights of refugees, immigrants, socially disadvantaged persons and threatened minorities in Europe.

The Alpine Convention in action

Urban areas are not often directly thought of in connection with the Alpine Convention - “the Alps are mountains, not cities” is the refrain. The Austrian city of Klagenfurt contradicts such views.

No free ride from Italy to Germany

The European Union does not want to finance the Alemagna motorway: but the Italian Veneto Region is insisting on the road link to Germany.

Better protection for natural spaces

Resistance is growing across the Alps against construction activities in pristine or largely unspoilt areas. CIPRA is making an appeal for integrative spatial planning to the Alpine states meeting this week in Murnau, Germany.

One river, numerous desires: disagreements about the Alpine Rhine

A current bone of contention between different interest groups is the priority to be given to the various uses made of the Alpine Rhine: as a farming area, as a habitat for the little ringed plover and the German tamarisk, or as a drinking water reservoir. SPARE, a new European Union project for the Alpine region, will offer assistance for the holistic management of watercourses.