Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
as a consumption resource', Denis Cosgrove noted (Soovali-Sepping 2010:153),
'we do not want to preserve landscapes necessarily because we want to preserve
some kind of authentic peasantry in the way that was the case in the nineteenth cen-
tury. We want to preserve landscape because we enjoy being tourists in it, we enjoy
walking and hiking in it. That is why Europeans want to preserve landscape - it is
an object of consumption' (H. Soovali-Sepping, 2007, unpublished interview).
Hence, there has been a growing demand for traffic-free mountain tracks and
footpaths, permitting the enjoyment of rewarding, interesting, stimulating and/or
special-interest activities (e.g. birdwatching). Such activities have inevitably con-
tributed to landscape-related actions in the context of local policy initiatives, for
example to conserve, signpost, clean and repair old paved footpaths (LEADER
projects). Although few and sporadic, these initiatives lead to a more widespread
landscape awareness and promotion of mountain landscapes, as well as directly con-
tributing to the preservation of 'traditional' landscape forms, functions and mean-
ings/values for both locals and tourists. 'Policy initiatives are only recently begin-
ning to emerge, in response to growing concern about the future of deteriorating
landscapes
The main lesson about the footpaths' example is that, once old land-
scape elements acquire new functions (due to new values regarding the landscape
or activities in it), they have better chances of preservation' (Kizos
et al.,
2007).
Presently, 'it is transalpine celebrants who, having previously chroni-
cled Mediterranean “degeneration,” now romanticize Mediterranean endurance'
(Lowenthal, 2008, p. 385). Mediterranean folk emulate their forebears' endurance:
'our culture survives by allowing itself to be overwhelmed
...
We corrupted the
Napoleonic invaders, and we'll deal with tourism as well. Adaptation
...
makes us
unconquerable' (interview with a local, in Lowenthal, 2008). Nonetheless, it is easy
to exceed Mediterranean mountain sites' carrying capacity, when winter resort in-
frastructure and recreation activity overwhelm the natural mountain setting. For
instance, 'these days, the noble aim of “democratising skiing” seems to apply less
and less
...
The ideals of the first mountain pioneers, who strove to create the best
possible conditions for their leisure time in the snow, has been reduced to
...
selling
the winter sports “products” at all costs' (Venema, 2008, p. 124). The unrelent-
ing advance of winter sport tourism has therefore 'not only pushed the much older
forms of mountain tourism and leisure pursuits, the true forms of Alpinism such
as climbing and hiking, into the background, it is in fact at variance with it. The
heavy infrastructure, construction and spoiling of the landscape has undermined
the conditions or these forms of summer recreation' (Venema, 2008, p. 126).
There is another danger lurking in the background of the various contempo-
rary and fast-advancing alternative forms of tourism encountered in Mediterranean
mountain settings and communities. 'Nature-tourism' or ecotourism growth tends
to idealize not only traditional modes of production, but also an entire rural past -
often presented as homogenized and ahistorical - as a condition of stasis and a
type of balance with nature, in contrast to the industrial way of life (Deltsou in
Galani-Moutafi, 2002). 'For achieving a continuity of the balance between nature
and culture, an outlet is provided through the establishment of protected natural
...
