International Day of Mountains: Sustainable Mountain Tourism
10.12.2021
The General Assembly of the United Nations declared December 11, 2003, as the International Day of Mountains, and we have been observing it worldwide ever since. The Alpine Association of Slovenia prepares a message every year for this day, whose theme this year is sustainable mountain tourism, and its author is PZS Vice-President Martin Šolar.
Mountains. Are mountains merely a raw but exceedingly attractive part of our planet, or are they part of the mountain world whose significance is manifold? Do you ever ask yourselves what mountains mean to you? Do you know that the mountain world covers 22 percent of all land surface on Earth, and in Slovenia as much as 40 percent? The significance of mountains is not merely their role as a goal and motivation for conquerors of the useless world; rather, it is much broader and exceptional. Mountains themselves, people who live in mountains, benefits and products from the mountain world, water, food, mountain agriculture, and ultimately the significance of mountains for mountain tourism or mountaineering in the broadest sense. And it is precisely in this latter aspect that the general public finds the most common mental association with mountains.
This is true in the developed Western world, in the heart of mountaineering development in the Alps, and also in Slovenia. More and more people are venturing into nature, into the hills, into the mountains. Not only so-called organized mountaineers, members of the Alpine Association of Slovenia, but also many others. There are at least five times as many of these others among us, as we estimate that more than three hundred thousand Slovenes regularly go to the mountains. Is this okay? Mountains represent a healthy spirit in a healthy body for Slovenes, as well as national identification through ascent to the highest Slovenian mountain. We encounter more and more people in the mountains; every Slovenian village builds its tourism development on hiking, mountaineering, alpinism—call visiting the mountains what we will. Are the mountains prepared for such a siege? Are we, the mountain visitors, prepared for the mountains? These are the key questions linked to this year's highly topical theme of the International Day of Mountains: Sustainable Mountain Tourism.
Mountains in general represent an open natural space that, despite everything, is less crowded or visited compared to large cities, amusement venues, and shopping centers. Due to COVID, visits to the mountains have greatly increased, which is positive on one hand, as many have replaced the aforementioned gathering places with nature and mountains. At the same time, this fact raises questions: are the mountains ready for such increased visitation, and are the people who started going to the mountains yesterday prepared for them? What to do? How to instill principles of caution, sustainability, and responsibility into the heart of mountain tourism? This goal is extremely important, and we must pursue it. It is not easy; it comes at a cost, but our actions to preserve the mountain world while ensuring genuine mountaineering experiences are an investment in a paradisiacal mountain realm for future generations. With the right attitude toward nature in the mountain world, we will preserve it; biodiversity is the source of our survival. Through sustainable and targeted mountain tourism, we will also respect cultural and spiritual values, as well as the life values of people who live in the mountains. True mountain tourism promotes natural food production chains and local products in general.
Do you think about these things when you rush to the hillside before or after work, to a mountain hut or to a mountain peak, and then hurry straight back? Do you consider all this when you complain about sustainable mobility measures because you want to drive as far as possible on the way to the mountains? Can you replace the adrenaline of rushing and rampaging through the mountains—which gyms and stadiums are increasingly supplanting—with the serenity of gazing at a babbling alpine river, resting your soul and body, and waiting for those captured moments of timelessness in our wonderful mountains? Let us go to the mountains respectfully, prepared for them, safely. Let us take time for mountain experiences!
Martin Šolar, Vice-President of the Alpine Association of Slovenia
