The Alps :
Storm Signals
Rampant development, acid rain and erosion pose threats to Europe’s most majestic mountains
Jean Bich has lived in the Valle d’Aosta all his life. "Back in the old days," the 74-year-old mountain guide smiles, "there were just a couple of shacks and you could only get here by mule." Here is Cervinia, an internationally famous ski resort cozily perched 2,106 meters above sea level on the Italian side of the Matterhorn. Today, Cervinia boasts a movie theater, 27 ski lifts, 50 restaurants and 15,500 tourist beds. Lured by 80 luxurious kilometers of downhill slopes, vacationers have brought prosperity to the 800 year-round inhabitants of the once dirt-poor village. Bich and his wife live in a comfortable four-story chalet, of which they rent out three floors. Says the owner of a local sandwich bar: "Here, you live or die by tourism."
Death by tourism is just what scientists and environmentalists fear might happen to the Alps. Europe’s economic boom now brings 100 million visitors annually to the 200,000-square-kilometer expanse of white peaks, blue lakes, green pastures and silver glaciers spanning seven nations from Nice to Ljubljana. Collectively, they generate piles of trash almost as high as the mountains and supp6rt an industry that razes mountainsides for ski slopes and paves over fields for apartment blocks. But tourism is not the only thing to blame for the prospect of an Alpine Apocalypse. Situated in the heart of Europe’s most heavily populated and industrialized zone, the mighty mountains are showered with everything from acid rain to nuclear fallout from the Chernobyl disaster. It takes less than 18 hours, for example, for a cloud of sulfur dioxide from a London rush hour to reach the mountains of Liechtenstein. Resort development and acid rain both contribute to alarming erosion— which engenders a calamitous chain of disruption to the area’s wildlife. Visitors stand breathless for a moment before the beauty of the peaks, but then they increasingly notice signs that something is terribly wrong: decimated forests, forlorn hamlets, muddy hillsides and ugly avalanche barriers. "It’s a kind of grim forewarning," says Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, who recently launched a campaign to save the Alps. "But people don’t listen to warnings. People only learn through catastrophes."
Catastrophes have been multiplying. Some come with a bang: in recent years, floods and landslides have killed campers in France and forced the evacuation of hundreds in Austria’s Tyrol region. But perhaps the most devastating catastrophes develop slowly, over time, with a whisper. Acid rain does to alpine trees what AIDS does to humans: pollution permeates the needles of conifers, accumulating poisons and weakening the evergreens’ resistance until they are finished off by parasites, insects and the elements. When storms raged through the Swiss resort of Verbier last February, hundreds of ailing pines were destroyed in a matter of minutes. Healthy alpine forests are protected from fierce mountain gales by the dense canopy of the upper branches, but when disease thins that shield, winds cut through like a scythe through weeds. Swiss authorities estimate that more than half the country’s trees are sick; in the Bavarian and Austrian Alps, the figure could be as high as 80 percent.
When trees disappear, the life around them is endangered. "If a forest dies in the mountains, entire communities become uninhabitable," says Franz Speer of the German Alpine Association in Munich. "The danger of earthslides, avalanches and erosion increases dramatically." Thanks to its intricate network of roots, the fragile Alpine forest is what holds the range together. Without it, heavy rains can strip the earth from the stone, leaving no chance for new vegetation to take hold and raising the risk of landslides and further destruction. In the winter, when there is snow, trees are also a natural barrier against avalanches. Without them, costly—and unattractive—artificial structures of wood and concrete have to be built. Even nature can turn against itself in a sort of vicious circle: when deer and elk lose their natural grazing grounds to development, they often feed on saplings, thus denuding the woodland even more. "The future forests are ending up in the bellies of mountain deer," says Speer.
Blown out by explosives: In France’s HauteSavoie region, nearly 60 plant species have disappeared since 1900, and throughout the French Alps rare black grouse that hibernate just beneath snow level are literally blown out of their lairs by explosives used to control potential avalanches. "The mountain environment is being attacked and is constantly regressing," mourns French environmentalist Monique Gautier. "The animal and plant species have nowhere else to go and they’ll disappear." And prospects for improvement seem dim. In Germany, levels of nitrogen oxides, the primary cause of acid rain, have risen 30 percent over the past decade.
The Alps’ geography may be their own worst enemy. The mountains lie just a couple of driving hours from Munich, Milan, Zurich and several other European metropolises, and they act as an enormous bottleneck, channeling huge concentrations of traffic through a handful of smog-filled tunnels and passes. To limit the damage caused by trucks, Switzerland has banned any heavier than 28 tons. Austria, though its rules are more liberal, is moving to control traffic as well. But other countriesaren’tquiteasvigilant. Eightypercent of the traffic across the Swiss Alps moves by rail; by contrast, that figure is 20 percent in Germany and just 12 percent in Italy. In many Italian communities, the problem has sparked bitter disputes. Highway construction in the Valle d’Aosta and in the Valle de Susa, for example, infuriates environmentalists. "We don’t want a freeway that increases the number of trucks passing through here,"says Elio Riccarand, an Aosta councilman of the Greens party. Others point out that high volumes of traffic affect not just trees and animals, but humans as well. "A direct consequence of automobile exhaust is higher levels of lead in mothers’ milk," says Innsbruck physician Klaus Romberg, who also notes that people who live along the Austrian-Italian border suffer an abnormally high incidence of bronchial infections.
Air pollution from car exhaust is unlikelyto be reduced any time soon. Italian truck drivers wield considerable power; when they staged a strike to protest new Austrian traffic restrictions last month, gas stations were forced to close and prices for imported produce skyrocketed. And environmentalists complain that all too often, the promise of financial gain weighs heavier than ecological concerns in the hearts of politicians. The Valle d’Aosta, an autonomous region that is allowed to keep 9 percent of duties paid by trucks coming outof the Mont Blanc tunnel—which added up to a handsome $325 million last year—horrified ecologists when it announced its candidacy for the 1998 Winter Olympics.
Olympic damage: In the hitherto. relatively little-developed area around Albertville, France, preparations for the 1992 Olympics have already left their mark. The stench of diesel fumes and the roar of dump trucks greet visitors at the site of the future bobsled run. At Le Praz, beneath Courcheye!, bulldozers have cleared a wide swath of forest for the ski jump. Highways are replacing rural roads; hotels are proliferating. "There will be no virgin mountain left in Savoie in the next 10 or 15 years if the current pace of development continues," sighs Monique Gautier. How do Olympic‘s officials feel about such predictions? "Of course they cut a little forest, but not a lot," organizer Georges Manduit recently told the BBC. "It’s just a few trees. They are not in good shape. The trees are a little bit sick."
Environmentalists charge that what’s really sick is the pace of development. As prosperity has put exotic travel destinations within the reach of many Europeans, ski resorts have suffered declines in attendance. "The real estate market is in a real downturn here," says François Michal, a real-estate agent in the French resort of L’Alpe d’Huez. "It’s a catastrophe." The result: jealous communities furiously compete with one another for the most spectacular lift installations, the most modern hotels, the most convenient parking and the most novel attractions. In the frenzy, they sometimes lose their sense of perspective. L’Alpe d’Huez may boast 85 different ski lifts, but its sewerage system is capable of treating only 75 percent of the waste generated by its tourists in the high season; the rest is simply dumped down the hills. With a population ofjust 169, nearby Vaujany is equipped with a cable car capable of carrying 1,800 people an hour. In Vald’Isère, the roof of one apartment building is so designed that avalanches can pass over it. To make matters worse, the lack of snow during the past several winters has encouraged promoters to build ski lifts that reach ever-higher peaks, offer helicopter service to once untouched glaciers, and use snow cannons to blanket bald slopes with artificial flakes—all of which are detrimental to the environment. Still, local officials are undaunted. Says L’Alpe d’Huez Mayor Jean-Guy Cupillard: "There are zones that should remain virgin, unspoiled by any construction. But other zones should be developed. The French mountains are large enough and relatively little developed."
‘Quality over quantity’: Many vacationers don’t agree. They say that what’s keeping them away from the slopes isn’t the lure of sun and sand elsewhere, but the traffic jams and industrial atmosphere they have come to find in many Alpine resorts. "People are beginnning to ask themselves, ‘What did I come to the mountains for? To find traffic, polluted air and dirty water? I’ve got that at home’," says Elio Riccarand in Aosta. Stefano Ardito of Mountain Wilderness, an international association of Alp lovers, insists: "The Alps must put some limits on activities—or risk losing the future tourist who doesn’t want the crowds." The Austrian government has understood this; it now actively discourages new resort development. "We think we have hotels enough," says Norbert Burda of the country’s official tourism board. "Now, we want quality over quantity."
Decisions made in one Alpine country don’t always affect policy in another. An Alpine Convention has been on the drawing board for years, but with France Germany Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Liechtenstein and Yugoslavia all IN claiming to know what’s best for the mountains, reaching international agreements seems virtually impossible. Still, all Europeans have a stake in saying their most spectacular mountain range. A legend from the French village of Les Rousses illustrates just how dramatically the Alps—where four of Europe’s greatest rivers originate—dominate the Continent. When it rains in Les Rousses, the locals say, the drops that fall off one side of the church roof eventually reach Marseilles—and water from the other side flows all the way to Rotterdam.
-PASCAL PRIVAT with CHRISTOPHER DICKEY in the Swiss Alps, SWEEK FZONA GLEIZES in the French Alps, PIA HINCKLE in the Italian Alps and KAREN BRESLAU in Bonn
Source : NEWSWEEK, 23 April, 1990
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