Critically evaluate the impact of skiing on mountain environments. - What role can tourism play in sustaining mountain communities?

Critically evaluate the impact of skiing on mountain environments. What role can tourism play in sustaining mountain communities?

Only 75 years ago, skiing was an elite sport practiced by a few hard souls in about 6 mountain resorts in the European Alps. Hotels had just begun to stay open to extend the resorts season. They used to be built mainly for summer vacations, attracting wealthy clients that could afford to travel. In the 1920s the European alpine nations began to build ski lifts, which increased popularity of skiing to new heights. Simultaneously with innovation and the development of new equipment and techniques, skiing attracted more followers and became part of the Olympic games in 1925. Today “forty million skiers can journey to any three hundred major alpine ski resorts around the major mountain chains of forty countries” (Net: 1).

Looking at the European Alps one can see the explosion of skiing tourism. I chose the Alps as main example of my piece of work simply for the reasons, that they are the place where skiing developed and boomed the most and they are also my place of birth and I think I can relate to some of the impacts tourism has. Also no other mountain area is hit that hard by the tourism industry in winter as well as in summer, having about 120 million visitors and covering about one quarter of the World tourism (Source: 1).

Skiing has got major effects especially on the environment of the Alps, but has brought wealth and a consistent income to mountain communities. I will sum up the impacts on environment and the effects on locals, skiing and its tourism has brought.

The impacts of skiing and its tourism are not only environmental but also economical and cultural.

One of the major environmental problems of most tourism areas is the huge numbers of cars the tourists arrive in. These do not only pollute air and drinking water but also produce a lot of noise locals have to cope with. A survey was made in Schönberg, where drinking water no more meets regulations and grown vegetables could be damaging for children because of their high content of lead.

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About 48% of the population feel inhibited by the noise of the local Autobahn where not only trolleys, but also thousands of tourists make their way in and out of the Alps (Source: 6, page 80). 25% of Switzerland’s trees are damaged by the high percentage of pollutants (Source: 5).

The first environmental problem caused directly by skiing is the slopes. To produce these, trees have to be cut down and the area has to get smoothened. This makes the floor get lose and causes landslides in summer and avalanches in winter. In Switzerland and every other alpine nation recognise a constant increase in natural disasters (Source: 5). In order to protect skiers from these, avalanche fences are built, which are huge walls that do not look very attractive once the snow is gone. The Swiss spend about 50 million Swiss Francs to build these walls (Source: 3). Another opportunity to protect skiers is the artificial production of avalanches by using explosives. Dangerous areas are being blown up to cause an avalanche, so that none can get lose when people are on the hill. But the side effect is that the avalanches are damaging nature on the long run (Source: 3).

Then the profit-orientation of the industry causes two environmental problems. If ski resorts are opened although there is not enough snow, the ground is cut by the sharp edges of the skis. This causes erosion and destroys the floor for the summer. Normally slopes are used to hold and feed kettle, which is often impossible because there is not enough grass available and the ground has to recover.

An opportunity to extend the seasons and not having the problem of too less snow is the production of artificial snow. As interesting it my sound to the industry the so-called snow cannons also have certain drawbacks. Apparently the artificial snow is about 10 times heavier then normal snow. It is so compressed that it lets hardly any air through. Therefore the floor cannot breathe and it starts to rot under the heavy weight. Additionally by extending the season the recovery time for the floor gets shorter. Therefore there is huge damage made to the ground. Another drawback is the enormous amount of energy these machines use.

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Per season one cannon requires up to 1000 l of water and more than half a million Kilo watt Hours of electricity for only one square meter of slope (Source: 2).

Another environmental problem is the pollution of the mountains mainly by oil and salt. Research was made on a glacier in Obersdorf by the biologist Reiner Braun who made drillings to examine the ground. He found oil mainly from piste caterpillars and salt that was used to soften up icy areas of the slope. But he also noticed pollution from ski wax and sun cream. He recons if global warming continues melting the ice there might be a risk of polluting the drinking water (Source: 4).

Finally skiing tourism is affecting culture and economical environment of locals. With the rising numbers of tourists and the profitability of the industry more and more locals get to do business which is tourist related. Traditional industries such as agriculture were not as reliable and did not pay off that well. Therefore traditions and culture of locals change. In the community Heiligenblut over one third of the jobs have to do with tourism. The village Obertauern having about 300 inhabitants provides in season peaks about 6000 beds for tourists and has about 700000 over night stays per year (Source: 6, page 67). One can see the extreme focus an therefore dependence on the tourist industry.

The economical change mainly is affected by prices of goods. Peoples income is now higher but so are prices even in the local bar, restaurant or supermarket in order to make tourists pay more. The problem is that people such as pensioners or farmers that do not have a higher income because of tourists, struggle to pay for their living.

Also some suffer under the impact of tourism and get ripped off by the government. An example for this would be the farmer Lärcher who was forced in court to continue to rent out his ground to the government. He refused to provide his ground to skiers because he recently had landslide and his ground is so damaged in summer that his kettle can hardly find any grass. The absurd thing is that the government only pays him about 300 pounds rent each winter while the industry earns a fortune (Source: 1).

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