Does Norway hold the key to sustainable skiing?

Last month I spent a week ski touring from hut to hut in Norway’s spectacular Jotunheimen Mountains. Navigating the snow-enveloped landscape, we crossed frozen lakes, climbed several mountains, and managed to get ourselves down the other side in one piece (if not in style). We covered close to 100 miles in 6 days, and our appetites certainly knew it; after a (surprisingly) delicious dinner of tinned reindeer meatballs and rice, we would finally collapse onto our bunks with the glow of another perfect day of Norwegian friluftsliv (outdoor life).  

 

Sletningsbu Hut

Attempting this journey would have been virtually impossible without the infrastructure of DNT, the Norwegian Trekking Association. The huts are owned and maintained by DNT who operate a whole network of serviced, half-serviced and un-serviced huts based on a trust system. We borrowed a key from them (which they had arranged for us to collect on a Sunday night at a bus service station half way from Oslo to the Jotunheimen) and this opened the padlock on the doors of the self-service cabins. These cabins are basic wooden huts without electricity or running water. They have a stove, several bunk beds with blankets (you simply bring a sleeping bag liner, or hut sack) and are kept stocked with tins and packets of food, firewood, cooking utensils and a supply of candles. Being lucky enough to be the only inhabitants, arriving at the hut meant falling straight into homemaking mode – getting a fire lit (it took over an hour to get the temperature inside the hut above 0C) and melting snow to get water for dinner and the numerous cups of tea drunk while reflecting on the day’s journey and planning tomorrow’s. The one downside was that needing to go to the toilet in the middle of the night usually meant a headtorch-lit icy scramble through a snowdrift to the long-drop. The toilets are treated with organic composting chips, although at -20C they don't tend to smell too bad anyway.  

Frozen lakes: useful for navigating in a completely white lansdcape

Upon leaving each hut, you fill in one of the DNT’s envelopes, detailing what food you used and how many nights you stayed and tally up your bill accordingly, adding cash or your credit card details and then simply post this into the box provided. The fact that this system of trust obviously works and enables the whole network of huts to exist is a refreshing taste of how simple tourism can be effective, not to mention low impact (no chairlifts, piste-makers, snow canons or resort complexes) and take you to some pretty awe-inspiring places.

Corinne Doff

Responsible Skiing

As the European ski season heads to the end of another year, it’s time for a post on the sustainability of the ski industry.  With climate change becoming an increasingly present reality, snowfall patterns are likely to change and the ski industry affected. We need to assess not only the impact of changing climates on skiing, but the skier’s impact on a changing climate. “Responsible Travel” has been a phrase used in the tourism industry for some time now. This encompasses more than just environmental responsibility, but ensuring that your travel is culturally and socially responsible too, as Responsible Travel put it; “travel like a local”. My visit to the Responsible Skiing Conference in October 2012 gave me a chance to explore this through the eyes of the ski industry.

Would it shock you if I said that nearly 75% of annual (2007) greenhouse gas emissions from Saint Martin de Belleville (Les 3 Vallées, France) came from tourists travelling to the resort? And that’s from flying. Whilst we would all assume that flying was the cheapest and quickest option, Snowcarbon would love to differ. So many people don’t even think about options aside from flying and sometimes driving. But what about the train? Not only can this compete on price, but also travel time, and you can often fit an extra days skiing in, as well as dramatically reducing your carbon footprint. Check out their most recent video for proof:

And now to the slopes. Don’t you just love those huge expanses of fresh white pistes, dotted with snow-covered trees? The environmental impacts of this are obvious; large-scale tree-felling, the loss of a natural carbon sink, machine grading of the land and all of the knock-on effects that come from the removal of trees. And then what about that continuous supply of snow that seems to appear even on those bluebird days? The long list of impacts of artificial snow-making include an excessive use of water, chemical inputs to natural ecosystems, alteration of water courses, and high energy use. With shifting climate patterns, it ensures a more reliable snow cover for the industry, and Scotland has recently dabbled in it for help. But it does still require low temperatures in order for the snow to form, so can it really work as a sustainable solution, especially with all of the impacts involved?

And then there’s your accommodation, which brings with it all the “normal” sustainability issues such as energy use, heating, food choices, water consumption, excessive laundry. . . The graph again shows that heating tourists’ accommodation is a huge chunk of the emissions within Saint Martin de Belleville. This is an area that has recently seen a shift in many European resorts. There is now much more recognition for “responsible” accommodation providers, which can be seen through companies such as Green Traveller, Responsible Travel and Much Better Adventures and cover a wide range of choices such as cross-country skiing, which places less pressure on the environment, “eco-chalets”, or staying closer to home in Scotland. If you prefer tour operators, then you can check out their sustainability policies which are usually widely available on their websites.

But it’s not all doom and gloom, there are ways to make your ski holiday guilt-free. You can make your entire resort selection based on environmental or “responsible” factors. For example, Austria has banned the use of chemicals in artificial snow-making, to maintain an organic farming area. Travel to Zermatt by train, and with cars banned in resort, look out for the silent electric buggies zooming around stacked with luggage. Or make simple choices such as eating in a locally-owned and run restaurant with local food specialities, choose not to have your towels changed every day in the hotel, or swap your skis for some snow shoes for a day to reduce your pressure on the environment.

 Obviously this doesn’t cover the whole area of Responsible Skiing, but it is possible to make some conscious decisions to make your holiday that bit more sustainable, and to give the European ski season a bit more longevity. Ultimately we need to protect the environment that we want to use.

Shona Marsh

@DuniraStrategy

February

The month of romance, apparently.

Now I know that the Great British weather doesn’t exactly lend itself to romance, but instead of the ‘classic’ Paris, or Venice, much as they are wonderful, why not try something a bit different? Glamping!

Looking out the window at the rain, sleet, ice and wind that some of us have been experiencing recently might not inspire your thoughts to the Great Outdoors, but there’s a new style of camping to be had, glamorous-camping.

                                                 

Camping seemingly no longer requires the mud, sleeping bags, and perseverance that are potentially the lasting memories for many.  Another page that is regularly is my browsing history is Canopy and Stars, whose choice of accommodation is a far cry from some of my personal camping experiences (another story, another day) with images so charming they make you drool a little. Not only is the choice of accommodation delicious, but yes, they’re as sustainable as possible too. People too often assume that glamour and sustainability don’t, or can’t, go hand-in-hand.

“We believe that you can live in a sustainable and responsible way without having to compromise on fun, excitement, or comfort” Alistair Sawday (founder)

You can take your pick on accommodation, from yurts to treehouses, and gypsy caravans to eco-pods. Most of the accommodation listed includes various “eco-friendly” components, such as composting toilets, wood-burning showers, a lack of electricity, and are often located on farms or land where you can access local produce. But my favourite might have to be the wood-fired hot tub available at several locations; it’s not eco-luxury without one surely?!

They’ve even partnered up with the wonderful Sustrans to offer a free weekend away (plus a bike and other cycling goodies) to a lucky visitor from 2012 who managed to make their holiday carbon-neutral and travelled by means other than a car. Definitely pressing all the responsible travel “buttons”!
 

“Holidays with a dash of eco-panache” – Greentraveller.com

In 2012, one lucky winner went on a whistle-stop tour of some of the offerings, which gives you a snapshot of the places to visit and activities on offer, definitely one to whet the appetite for some UK travel. And if this still leaves you stuck for ideas, their staff have even compiled a list of choices for Valentines itself.   

(This is not an endorsement, but pure unadultered lusting) 

Shona Marsh

Tourism, Conservation and Communities

The village conserves its sacred grove, national conservation authorities plan within their own state boundaries, while international bodies concern themselves with world heritage sites

Kingdon 1989

The vocabulary, perceptions and interest of the three have very little overlap even if they share a common interest in conserving wildlife. Much of conventional conservation, although it may seek to involve local interests, is centralized and imposed  and conservation, like tourism, can only be successful in settings where the affected local communities obtain tangible economic returns and cultural incentives for its implementation.

During the colonial era in the first half of the twentieth century, management of protected areas in West Africa shifted from traditional to state-run systems. This followed an internationally established system of national parks and reserves sanctioned by international conventions such as the Society for the Protection of Fauna of the Empire which emphasised the need for national parks and drew heavily on a scientific approach to the environment and its management. This is a trend which has continued into the post-colonial period, with large areas gazetted as national parks and other such protected areas. 

This model was heavily influenced by western science and conservation organisations, and often local communities find themselves marginalised, facing restrictions from an outside authority that denies them the right to use the resources they have depended upon, in a coercive form of protectionism that ignores the needs of the people and often excluded them from protected areas. This is a symptom of programmes not only in West Africa, but across the continent.  

Community-based conservation (CBC) came as a response to both alienating protectionist policies of the past and to the economic concerns that many rural people face. Advocates of CBC argue that the approach can be effective because it relates back to pre-colonial African conservation practices that used community-based constraints to regulate resource use, and it is a means by which rural Africans can benefit materially from protecting wildlife. CBC programmes follow a ‘bottom-up’ rather than ‘top-down’ approach, and have three major aims: (1) allowing people living near protected lands to participate in land-use policy and management decisions; (2) giving people proprietorship or ownership over wildlife resources; and (3) giving local people economic benefit from wildlife conservation.

A common problem in community-based conservation programmes is that often the needs of local people are considered primarily as a strategy to gain their acceptance of the conservation aspect. This kind of situation can create difficulties in long-term sustainability as enough money must be generated for local people to receive significant financial gain indefinitely. It is questionable whether sufficient employment and revenue can be generated to prevent exploitation of natural resources. There is also often doubt as to whether the economic return to rural people from CBC programmes can be high enough that people will not eventually look for economic alternatives. Simultaneous achievement of social, economic and conservation goals is a challenge. 

By their nature, protected areas are attractive to tourists, through whom significant contributions to conservation costs can be obtained. However, if communities are excluded, they see no benefit from conservation or tourism, and are often even be forced off their farming land by the expanding boundaries of ‘successful’ conservation initiatives, forcing many into poverty or to turn to other less sustainable livelihood options such as poaching.  

For CBC and tourism to succeed they must be flexible enough to cope with a growing number of extremely poor people who depend on a subsistence existence and whose greatest goal is to gain economic security. Policies that restrict responses to changing circumstances, “forced primitivism” and can lead to poverty traps, may be a problem when the needs of wildlife and wildlife watchers are emphasized over the needs of people. 

 Corinne Doff

Summit to think about... Has tourism on Everest peaked?

The recent revelation of the number of permits to climb Mount Everest (Chomolungma) this spring, an increase of 28% on last year’s allocation, made me think about the classic question: how do you prevent tourists destroying the very place that attracted them in the first place?

While it took 30 years for the first 150 climbers to reach the summit of Everest, this was exceeded in a single day in May 2010, with 169 climbers making the top, and with them come the problems associated with increased accessibility to the world’s highest mountain.

Its growing reputation as “the world’s highest garbage site” describes what is arguably the most notorious issue; litter from the hundreds of people leaving oxygen tanks, food packaging and tents in their wake. But this is not the only problem affecting the sustainability of ecotourism on Everest, which is part of Sagarmatha National Park UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Successful management of ecotourism is defined as creating a relationship between people, resources and tourism, in which each can contribute positively to the other.

In terms of socio-economic benefits, the permit alone, which allows entry to the Everest area from the south via Nepal, costs between $10,000 and $25,000 per person. There are approximately 2,500 Sherpa people living within the national park, who rely on tourism to make their living and whose cultural heritage is also valued under the park’s UNESCO World Heritage status. Reducing visitor numbers would compromise their livelihoods, but is it right that they should continue to endanger their lives for the increasing number of less experienced climbers attempting to conquer the mountain?

A recent article in The Guardian also brought up concerns over the “overcrowding” of Everest. Every May, several hundred inspired people will try for the summit in one of the weather windows, resulting in dangerous bottlenecks packed with climbers, the reality of which was sadly demonstrated by the death of four climbers in May, raising the question: has the mountain become too accessible?

We are often told to “take only photographs and leave only footprints”, but is that actually one of the problems here? Besides the rubbish left behind by climbers, the degradation caused by increased footfall is also evident, threatening biodiversity as well as the aesthetic value of this area of “stunning natural beauty”, as described by Sir Chris Bonington.

Where to draw the line? Balancing tourism and conservation.

Not everyone believes huge numbers of visitors will be detrimental to Everest: “Unquestionably Nepal wants the money and locals want the money - they want people to come” (George Martin, EverestNews.com). Indeed, small scale tourism elsewhere has been found to be inappropriate or unsustainable socio-culturally in the wrong circumstances. For example in the Tufi region of Papua New Guinea, inter-clan balance was disrupted when one clan began to profit materially from the operation of traditional-style guest houses. Conflicts intensified further when well-meaning foreign agencies provided the operators with motor boats and other aid. In contrast, large scale tourism may in some circumstances prove sustainable. Some of the major European tour operators, for example, successfully endeavor to ensure that their clients do not contribute to negative socio-cultural and environmental impacts in the destinations that they visit.

Carrying capacities can be raised through appropriate management and some believe that the best strategies are those which concentrate large numbers of visitors in a small area. In South Africa’s Kruger National Park, for example, the 700,000 annual visitors are restricted almost entirely to just 4% of the land. Although limiting visitor numbers by permit undoubtedly prevents wide-spread degradation, concentrated visitation to the prime sites used in ecotourism often still results in an unacceptable level of degradation. The absence of adequate environmental assessments and site audits can lead to “self-destructive ecotourism”.

“The assessment of a particular tourist product as good or bad does not depend on scale, but rather on the effectiveness of the management practices that are applied to the circumstances of each individual destination”

(Weaver, 2001)

Corinne Doff

@CorinneDoff

Making tracks - Belize's ‘Forgotten South’

River to reef, mountain to mangrove... Dunira’s Corinne Doff travelled to Belize last month to look at the ecotourism market.

Jaguar track in Bladen Nature Reserve, Toledo

Over 70% of Belize’s landmass is comprised of natural areas, 40% of which are protected reserves. In a country so rich in biodiversity, it is unsurprising that ecotourism is one of the most financially valuable sectors of Belize’s economy, with 14% of all tourists visiting its natural protected areas. The majority of these visits are centred around a few ‘honeypot’ destinations with little push towards spreading the flow elsewhere in the country. Belize’s southern-most district, Toledo, boasts some of the country’s most richly biodiverse and pristine rainforest, while pine ridge savannahs and mangrove surround coastal lagoons, from which the stunning Sapodilla Cayes can be reached. But, despite Toledo’s multitude of attractions, only 2% of visitors to Belize venture to the ‘Forgotten South’.

Organic cocoa farm. Toledo

While governments have a major role to play in the marketing of their destinations and it can be difficult for individual businesses, no matter how good the product, to do all the work, experience has shown that destinations are far more successful if businesses work together to market collectively. Whether it be as a public-private partnership, cooperative or as a formal Destination Management Organization (DMO), in order to compete with other tourism destinations and to access distribution channels, working together can establish a single entity that has critical mass.

Corinne Doff