BOLZANO. «For decades, or rather for a century, we have had the ability to study, know and understand the territory, the ability to understand that now we are really going to crash into a wall. But we are not listened to, politics is missing here, those who should decide are missing. Who don’t collaborate and, in fact, very often put a spanner in the works.” This is the clear but far from surrendering position of CAI Alto Adige, expressed by the president on Saturday Carlo Alberto Zanelladuring the crowded conference «We are guests in the mountains»organized at the Salewa conference hall.
Great technical depth, almost all local, without big names attracting from outside, because there’s no need. The know-how of the South Tyrolean CAI members is very high, as yesterday’s reports demonstrated: life and difficulties of mountain farmers; water landscapes; responsible use of the mountain environment; prevention in the field of mountain rescue; the disposable Alps etc. The picture that has emerged is inexorable. If a few decades ago it was purists who complained about tourism, today we have gone much further. And the CAI, like the Alpenverein, had to take the field in a heavy way, including appeals and so on.
The work of raising awareness, in a territory from 36 million overnight stays per year and only half a million residents, seems vain. Tourists and tour operators, except for a few, a few enlightened cases, are impervious. They don’t realize, they don’t have the skills. «Beyond competences – explains Zanella – politics, including local politics, is conditioned by lobbies. We know that in Alto Adige farmers, hoteliers and plant engineers are in charge, and politics supports these lobbies.” Zanella comes down hard, «I get angry too many times, but if someone had come to listen to what we have to say, they would have immediately noticed that we are not extremists, but very balanced. We understand well the needs of those who live in the mountains and valleys. It’s not for nothing that we have always said yes to ring roads that take traffic away from towns, we are in favor of the variants.”
However, the CAI does not agree on the construction of new ski lifts, «we are already full. When addressing the topic overtourism we talk too often about B&Bs, perhaps because they bother someone… Overtourism is making more and more tourists come, all year round, continuing to build facilities for the sole purpose of making them go around, to transport them from one point to another . Not to mention the 5-star hotels, which now exceed 60 in Alto Adige.”
One important thing, and this is what CAI is doing, is education. “If there were, the crowding would remain, but 50% of the problems would be solved.” In Alto Adige, as in Trentino and the Belluno area, «we have beauties that are unique in the world, tourists should come to see those, not for the 5-star hotels with spa and swimming pool. Thirty years ago, people came here to go to the mountains, but not anymore. They come for concerts at high altitude, because they can dance on the tables, for gourmet dinners, to ride the e-bike aimlessly until the battery runs out.” These are not the speeches of the purists of fifty years ago. We are in an emergency. True. As in the case of the Alpine rescuers, excluding the financiers and the 112 men, «all volunteers, forced to intervene to save people without respect, without preparation, without education, who put themselves and put them in danger. While politics and lobbies talk about sustainability and look elsewhere.”