Articles

[3 questions to … ] Francesca Pasetti Bombardella
[3 questions to … ] Francesca Pasetti Bombardella
2026 is the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP 2026) aimed at raising global awareness of the critical importance of rangelands and pastoralist communities, managed by FAO during the whole 2026. Francesca Pasetti Bombardella is co-chair of the Regional IYRP Support Group Europe.
Challenges and opportunities of long-distance hiking
Challenges and opportunities of long-distance hiking
What role does long-distance hiking play and how has it changed over the years? On 11 December 2025, International Mountain Day, CIPRA explored these questions with a panel discussion and film screening in Liechtenstein.
Point of view: Every drop counts
Point of view: Every drop counts
Discussing, eating and laughing together, forging ideas, identifying problems, discovering projects and meeting inspiring people: commitment is contagious, according to Anna Mehrmann and Maya Mathias from CIPRA International, who organised the second Liechtenstein Future Forum Alps on the topic of water in 2025.
Dialogue on Alpine Spatial Planning: Proceedings of the CIPRA Annual Conference 2025
Dialogue on Alpine Spatial Planning: Proceedings of the CIPRA Annual Conference 2025
How can Alpine Spatial Planning mitigate conflicts between the energy transition and nature restoration? This question was addressed at the CIPRA Annual Conference 2025 in Salzburg, which brought together more than 160 participants. The proceedings show key insights and recommended actions – not in a concluding way, but as part of an ongoing learning process and as an impulse for further debates. They underline the shared understanding that the energy transition in the Alpine region must be approached and implemented in a cross-sectoral, interdisciplinary, and transboundary manner.
Alpine water: who gets the last drop?
Alpine water: who gets the last drop?
Climate change, increasing soil sealing and pollution are all threats to water in the Alps. At the second Liechtenstein FutureForum Alps in Schaan, held at the end of June 2025, around 160 participants from various Alpine countries discussed the future of the water supply.
Young people’s demands for a good life in the Alps
Young people’s demands for a good life in the Alps
Environmental protection, car-free mobility and better work-life balance: these were the political demands of young people from Germany, France, Slovenia and Liechtenstein at the end of the CIPRA “Alpine Compass” project.
Short story: The sheet of paper
Short story: The sheet of paper
We present one of the five short stories that won an award in the short story competition as part of the "Reading mountains (Berge lesen)" festival 2023in Vaduz.
Cycling to the glacier
Cycling to the glacier
Exactly how mountaineering and climate protection can be combined was shown by a group of cyclists who biked from Lindau/D to the Ochsental Glacier/A at the start of September 2023. Topics along the way ranged from sustainable tourism to hydropower and nature conservation to glacier loss.
Commuting made easy
Commuting made easy
Commuting to work in healthier, more environmentally friendly ways: this is the goal set by the Slovenian municipality of Škofja Loka and local companies in the Trata 2.1 project, inspired by the experiences of corporate mobility management in the Alpine Rhine Valley.
A stronger voice for young people
A stronger voice for young people
Young people want to bring about sustainable change, but politics and society are moving too slowly. At the launch of CIPRA International’s Erasmus+ project “Alpine Climate Camps”, young adults discussed their commitment to a sustainable world in Schaan/LI in January 2023.
Alpine towns – key to sustainable development
Alpine towns – key to sustainable development
The ninth Report on the State of the Alps, entitled “Alpine Towns”, was presented as part of the Swiss presidency of the Alpine Convention. It sheds light on how the Alpine settlement system hinders – or helps – the sustainable development of the Alps.
Do you speak Alps?
Do you speak 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.
Under the magnifying glass
Under the magnifying glass
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.
Mobile in the Alps
Mobile in the Alps
By rail, by road, by mountain path: numerous CIPRA projects show just how diverse sustainable mobility can be.
Climate crisis makes mountains crumble
Climate crisis makes mountains crumble
Rockfalls and rockslides are nothing new in the Alps, but dwindling permafrost is making the situation even worse – for mountaineering and for villages.
“Netzwerkstatt Alpen” ceremonially opened
“Netzwerkstatt Alpen” ceremonially opened
The official inauguration of the building, an open day and a visit from the “Klimaspuren”: a number of events took place at the “Netzwerkstatt Alpen” in Schaan/LI on the occasion of World Environment Day and the Alpine-wide Climate Hour.
Strong new voices at CIPRA
Strong new voices at CIPRA
Stephan Tischler is the new Chairman of CIPRA Austria, Elias Kindle takes over as Executive Director of CIPRA Liechtenstein. At CIPRA International Wilfried Marxer becomes Treasurer and Sofia Farina is Youth Representative on the Board, while Co-Director Barbara Wülser says goodbye.
The “Netzwerkstatt Alpen” is now open
The “Netzwerkstatt Alpen” is now open
An international competence centre in Liechtenstein that strengthens the idea of sustainable development in the Alps: with the newly renovated “Netzwerkstatt Alpen”, CIPRA has made this vision a reality.
Fit for work
Fit for work
Change to bus, train, bike or e-bike: pilot companies in the Alpenrhein-Bodensee-Hochrhein region are testing healthy ways to work in the three-year Interreg project Amigo.
Budding ideas and flourishing projects
Budding ideas and flourishing projects
Building raised plant beds, converting parking spaces, replacing plastic bottles: at the end of the local project, young people from Schaan/LI travelled by train to Maribor/Sl and presented their actions aimed at a more sustainable lifestyle.
A Landscape of Ideas
A Landscape of Ideas
What does the future of the mountainous regions look like? Young people from all over the Alps sought answers in the CIPRA “Living Labs” project – on joint excursions, in workshops and through discussions on the topic of landscape.
How intact ecosystems improve our quality of life
How intact ecosystems improve our quality of life
Nature provides us with enormous benefits. The AlpES project draws on the concept of ecosystem services in order to record these in the Alpine regions and increase their appreciation.
The Alps as the focus of climate policy
The Alps as the focus of climate policy
Temperatures in the Alps are rising faster than the global average. The search for solutions is not limited to the World Climate Conference being held in Bonn, Germany.
A wind of change for municipalities
A wind of change for municipalities
At the Nagelfluhkette Nature Park/A, young people are teaching primary schoolchildren for a day. Together, they study water courses as a habitat for plants and animals. In l’Argentière-la-Bessée/F, another group is creating an adventure trail to the entrance of a silver mine.
The Alpine Rhine fête
The Alpine Rhine fête
CIPRA Liechtenstein. Taming Europe’s biggest torrent began some two hundred years ago. Today, the Alpine Rhine is a canal, its course lined for the most part by intensively used farmland and residual pockets of wetland forest.
One river, numerous desires: disagreements about the Alpine Rhine
One river, numerous desires: disagreements about the Alpine Rhine
A current bone of contention between different interest groups is the priority to be given to the various uses made of the Alpine Rhine: as a farming area, as a habitat for the little ringed plover and the German tamarisk, or as a drinking water reservoir. SPARE, a new European Union project for the Alpine region, will offer assistance for the holistic management of watercourses.
Strange but true...
…Are beavers really just great big clumsy rodents?
Our green lungs are running out of air
Our green lungs are running out of air
Animals and plants have to migrate in order to reproduce. That involves crossing land used by human beings. Ecological networking therefore needs the support of a variety of stakeholders. CIPRA brings them together.
Sustainable transport policy for an improved quality of life
Sustainable transport policy for an improved quality of life
On Liechtenstein’s doorstep, in the Austrian town of Feldkirch, the planning process is currently underway for a gigantic road construction project in the form of the Feldkirch Urban Tunnel.
Nominations for Alps-wide architecture prize
Nominations for Alps-wide architecture prize
Switzerland and Liechtenstein, with technical and organisational support from CIPRA, will for the third time be awarding prizes to buildings in the Alps that demonstrate particular aesthetic and sustainable qualities. The jury has now nominated 32 projects for the “Constructive Alps” Architecture Prize.