Alps / Europe

Satellites are to be used in a bid to improve the risk management of landslides, avalanches, mudslides and floods in Alpine regions. This is the objective of the latest ASSIST (Alpine Safety, Security and Informational Services and Technologies) research project, which is currently being launched as part of the European "Global Monitoring for Environment and Security" (GMES) initiative.

The latest brochure of the Austrian Alpine Association (ÖAV) features hiking and mountaineering regions in Austria which actively implement the Alpine Convention's Tourism Protocol.

The model project "No Barriers at the Berchtesgaden National Park" is to get underway in Berchtesgaden/D in July 2005. The project is to look at ways in which people with physical disabilities or restricted mobility can gain access to unspoilt natural environments.

Italian researchers have been analysing the excrements of two packs of wolves roaming Italy's Alpine region.

On 16 June UNEP, the United Nations Environment Programme, and the WWF launched a new partnership between the Alps and the Carpathians in Montecatini/I.

Anyone who comes across unused installations or buildings while out hiking or mountaineering in the Swiss Alps should take part in the Wilderness Olympics 2005 and notify Mountain Wilderness (MW) of their "find".

Turin/I is aiming to maximise the reduction in the output of greenhouse gases during the forthcoming Winter Olympics with the aid of its HECTOR (Heritage Climate Torino) programme launched in 2004.

27 Sherpas from Nepal are currently attending training courses at refuges in Austria's Tyrol province.

Lower winter precipitation has been one of the causes, along with global warming, behind melting glaciers over the past 150 years. These are the main findings of a study by researchers at the Laboratoire de glaciologie et géophysique de Grenoble/F and the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zurich/CH, published in the Geophysical Research Letters.

An Alpine transit exchange is seen as a viable option for promoting a shift from road to rail for transalpine heavy goods vehicle traffic. A report commissioned by the Swiss Ministry of Transport has confirmed the technical feasibility and economic acceptability of such a solution.