International Mountain Day: Solutions for a Sustainable Mountain Future

International Mountain Day: Solutions for a Sustainable Mountain Future – innovations, adaptation and youth, PZS message 2024.

The United Nations General Assembly declared December 11th as International Mountain Day in 2003, and we have been observing it worldwide ever since. The Alpine Association of Slovenia (PZS) prepares a message every year on this day, whose theme this year is: Solutions for a Sustainable Mountain Future – innovations, adaptation and youth.

Innovations for a sustainable future of the mountain world can be found in recycling the already experienced

The alpine organization has always paid attention to people's behavior and conduct in the mountains throughout its existence. This has been (and is) its strategic direction. Thus, from the initiative to establish the Mountain Society Triglav Friends in 1872 and the Slovenian Alpine Association in 1893, a unique tradition of written and unwritten rules of conduct when visiting the mountain world has been preserved and shaped. Following the example of beginner mountaineers and their sacrificial ancestors, today's generations of mountaineers love, respect, and value our homeland, nature, and mountains, we are selfless and sacrificial towards our comrades, and honest fighters for human values, fraternal coexistence, for everything that is progressive and humane. We preserve and develop human and alpine values and adapt them to modern conditions.

The introduction to the honor code of Slovenian mountaineers clearly addresses the theme of this year's International Mountain Day - Solutions for a Sustainable Mountain Future - innovations, adaptation and youth. Every generation of young people faces challenges that address the future. Adaptation is essential. Every adaptation is linked to innovations. Innovations, however, are in the domain of the young, who are generators of innovations, who accept and follow development conditioned by social changes, which they make meaningful through use or reject through non-use. The current challenge, which has been present for some time and is manifesting in the mountain world as well, is the sustainable use of everything available with more or less sincere goal that something will remain for posterity. We, the users of the alluring mountain world, are numerous. Interests in activities in the mountain world are diverse, with a common thirst for relaxation, retreat into nature in various forms, tourism, mountaineering, alpinism, sports in all forms prevailing. Mountains, whose visits were just a century and a half ago in the domain of local residents for easier survival and rare eccentrics addressed by tourists, are today flooded with all purposes. Those seeking relaxation who unfortunately no longer know how to coexist with nature, because we are alienated from it, because we are oriented solely towards our own goal of relaxation. The rapid shift from a distinctly urban environment and lifestyle to a sensitive, rich, expansive natural environment does not offer true relaxation and opportunities to respect everything that surrounds us.

Sustainability must be learned. The first step is knowledge, which gives birth to respect, and this must be repeated and reinforced, not just read with the help of artificial intelligence, but put into practice, which requires time. Therefore, the innovation in sustainability is recycling the already experienced, already known and once established, innovation in gradualness, patience and learning. How simple, with a little adaptation and use of the modern knowledge base, which is accessible through digitalization. Just the opposite of the traditional approach practiced by our ancestors, who faced illiteracy and whose knowledge was preserved and passed on through oral tradition. But they knew how to live sustainably, with nature, to which they were close and which they understood and respected - truly in everyday practice and not just in a reality show.

Without adaptation, self-limitation and respect, we will not succeed. Are we ready for this challenge? Are we ready to replace the ascent to Triglav with a trip to Rombon or Jerebica, to disperse our mountaineering and tourist activities over a wider area and contribute to relieving the most burdened natural environments? Are we ready to self-limit and admit that freedom cannot be infinite and is always limited and a matter of agreement and compromises that must be respected if we want to act discreetly for the benefit of the silent nature, if we want to preserve the experiential potential offered by the mountain environment, which is inspiration and motivation for most to venture into its depths? Solutions for a sustainable mountain future are simple, their feasibility is questionable, linked to innovative approaches and primarily based on adaptability, especially of the young, on whom the world stands and has not collapsed to this day.

Roman Ponebšek, Vice President of the Alpine Association of Slovenia

The author of this year's message is PZS Vice President Roman Ponebšek.