Alps / Europe

By rail, by road, by mountain path: numerous CIPRA projects show just how diverse sustainable mobility can be.

Renovate power plants instead of building new ones, preserve the last freshwater pearls, coordinate use and protection across countries: CIPRA has published a position paper with detailed technical demands on the use of hydropower in the Alps.

A different dialect in every community: the linguistic diversity of the Alps is fascinating and constantly changing, which also makes it interesting for linguists. Using modern methods such as crowdsourcing, a research project is collecting dialect words across the Alps for a digital, living lexicon.

What treasures and resources are hidden in the Alps? How do we deal with them as sustainably as possible? These and similar questions are posed in the August 2021 issue of SzeneAlpen.

Extreme weather conditions are also increasingly affecting the Alps. The climate crisis is driving this development. Can more and more dams, barriers or power stations solve the problem and at the same time satisfy the growing hunger for energy? We must work with the power of water rather than against it, says Kaspar Schuler, CIPRA’s Executive Director and co-author of CIPRA’s new position paper on hydropower.

Rockfalls and rockslides are nothing new in the Alps, but dwindling permafrost is making the situation even worse – for mountaineering and for villages.

Helicopter flights and Australian white wine on the one hand, an eco-museum and recycled smartphones on the other: positive and negative awards from environmental organisations point the way to a more sustainable future.

In a referendum held at the beginning of July, Slovenia’s citizens voted by a clear majority in favour of preserving the shore and coastal zones. In doing so, they overturned a new law that would also have affected Alpine waters.

Remote mountain villages in Piedmont/I have been struggling with heavy emigration for years. The region is now supporting people moving back to the mountains. A study from Austria shows how endangered Alpine agriculture actually is.