Live debate about the future of skiing
In the middle of a winter season marked by COVID-19, there have been some very heated discussions about the ski industry. However, with health concerns on the one hand, and financial ones on the other, attention has just been focused on the immediate situation. And so it has shifted away from the long-term outlook, which should still be a matter of great concern. On 25 January at 6 p.m., a live debate with three important guests will take place on the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation’s Facebook page.
Three views of transformation
Taking part in the debate will be Federica Corrado, Associate Professor at the Inter-university Department of Regional & Urban Studies and Planning at the Polytechnic University of Turin; Lorenzo Delladio, President and Managing Director of “La Sportiva”, and Andrea Ferrazzi, Director of Confindustria Belluno Dolomiti. The subject will therefore be discussed from a technical standpoint, and in relation to landscape, business and the production sectors, while the reasons for active conservation of the territory will be put forward by the Director of the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation, Marcella Morandini. In this way, a complete picture can be built up of the present and future status of ski resorts in the Alps, and particularly in the Dolomites.
The “case” of Passo Rolle
Lorenzo Delladio has been active in recent years in a move to develop a sustainable and inventive scheme for the Rolle Pass, with the aim of transforming an area traditionally used for alpine skiing into an “outdoor paradise”. The project would abandon the use of ski lifts, and offer alternatives such as trail running, snowshoe hiking, trekking, Nordic walking, mountain-biking, dog sledding, climbing, ski mountaineering and orienteering. On the one hand the project therefore envisages how the mountains will be in the future, including in relation to climate change, and on the other it responds to an increasingly widespread demand for a new form of tourism, which offers a wide variety of options even in winter, compatible with the local area and in tune with the concept of “slow”. Such a change is not easy and the project has encountered various obstacles, but it remains an example of courage and forward thinking and an important theme for discussion. Alongside this, of course, there is the matter of the tourist “industry” during this difficult year, and the crucial question of the impact of ski lifts (both old and new) on the mountain landscape. In short, this debate promises to be both very relevant to the present, and full of ideas for reshaping the future of the Dolomites.
Ph. Andreas Tamanini