On Sunday 24 January, the Minister of the Environment Gian Luca Galletti presented the “Cortina Charter” to promote the sustainability of winter sports, drawn up in conjunction with the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation.
Ph. Alessandro Zardini
In the presence of the Minister of the Environment Gian Luca Galletti, the Mayor of Cortina d’Ampezzo, Andrea Franceschi, together with Claudio Pedrotti, President of the province of Pordenone for the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation, Flavio Roda, President of FISI, Valeria Ghezzi, President of ANEF, Andrea Segrè, founder of Last Minute Market and Chairman of the Committee for the development of the national programme for the prevention of waste (Ministry of the Environment), Veronica Nicotra, General Secretary of ANCI, and Giovanni Malagò, President of CONI, all endorsed the pledge to safeguard the territory during winter sports events, such as the 2021 World Championship, ratified in the “Cortina Charter”.
Well aware that winter sports are key to the economy in so many Alpine resorts, they acknowledged the impact they have on the territory and reiterated the need to carefully assess this impact both now and in the future, especially in areas of outstanding environmental and landscape value like the Dolomites World Heritage Site.
The local authorities in Cortina, winter sports tourist operators, the Ministry of the Environment and the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation will work in synergy to come up with strategies to combine economic and environmental sustainability, in line with the Cortina Charter, promoting sustainable tourism in an area of Outstanding Universal Value which is inscribed on the World Heritage List.
We sincerely hope – declared Claudio Pedrotti in his speech – that the Cortina Charter will allow us to engage not only the institutions but all the stakeholders who operate in the area. Our common goal is to develop policies which respect the specific features of the mountain areas and implement measures promoting sustainable development, environmental protection and the enhancement of the territory which will enable us to raise awareness and pass on this heritage intact and properly preserved to future generations.
The Cortina Charter is an important commitment for the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation, which is actively involved worldwide in identifying strategies which combine economic and environmental sustainability, promoting sustainable tourism in an area of Outstanding Universal Value which is inscribed on the World Heritage List. It also marks an important step forward in the implementation of the Overall Management Strategy, which was drawn up with the help of the residents of the Dolomites.
Read the Cortina Charter here. [in Italian]