At the Board of Supporters, Mountain Wilderness, the environmental association and supporter of Fondazione Dolomiti UNESCO, put together a file with some reflections on the study carried out by EURAC of Bolzano on behalf of the Socio-economic Development and Sustainable Tourism Network, entitled Turismo sostenibile nelle Dolomiti. Una strategia per il bene patrimonio mondiale UNESCO (Sustainable Tourism in the Dolomites. A Strategy for the UNESCO World Heritage Site).
The EURAC study [LINK] sets out the guidelines for the shared management in the near future of the Dolomites tourist industry, management that cannot help but be of a political nature.
The “new tourism” about which Mountain Wilderness writes must be compatible with “the protection, conservation and presentation of such a complex entity as the Dolomites World Heritage Site and how this will be handed on to future generations”.
This is undoubtedly an ambitious goal, given the administrative and socio-economic diversity of the three regions, five provinces and the dozens of municipalities in the Dolomites UNESCO World Heritage Site, all with a hand in governing it.
The Mountain Wilderness team have analysed the state of health of the nine systems that make up the UNESCO World Heritage Site, from the point of view of the management of the tourist industry, pointing to what, in their opinion, appear critical points in the EURAC study and listing a set of priorities for ensuring sustainable tourism in the Dolomites.
The Mountain Wilderness file can be downloaded here in Pdf format (in Italian).
Photo: S. Bettio e L. Cicutin, Dolomiti Turismo