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When nature loses, we all lose
The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the safety of our homes – all depend on strong environmental laws. Right now, those protections are under attack. Once they’re gone, we hand the keys of our future to those who see nature only as a resource to exhaust. In the EU, environmental laws are being gutted, under the promise of “simplification” of the legal system. But in reality, these changes will only profit greed, while endangering the lives of all.
News
Microplastics in the Alps
Plastic pollution continues to threaten our health and our most precious landscapes. The latest findings show that microplastics can even be found on the highest Alpine peaks.
News
Nature-based solutions and their governance structures in the Alpine region
In view of the global challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss, the use of nature-based solutions (NbS) is becoming increasingly important. On behalf of the German Federal Environment Agency, ifuplan (lead) and CIPRA International are preparing a report on “Nature-based solutions and governance structures in the Alpine region”. The aim of the report is to analyse the potential of various NbS in the Alpine region and the governance mechanisms behind them that ensure their success. Based on this, their transferability to other Alpine regions will be analysed and recommendations for action formulated.
CIPRA Project
Desealing land in the Alpine region
Soils are among our most important resources. CIPRA's new project, entitled Ground:breaking, shows why desealing land is of benefit to everyone and what is needed at political, legal and local levels in the Alpine region to achieve this.
News
Ground:breaking
Soils are among the most important resources we have. CIPRA's new Ground:breaking project shows why desealing land benefits everyone and what is needed at political, legal and local level in the Alpine region to achieve this.
CIPRA Project
No glacier marriage in Tyrol
Finally it’s official: the plans for the world’s largest glacier ski area are history. In November 2022, the Tyrolean federal state government rejected the planned merger of the glacier ski areas in Austria’s Ötztal and Pitztal valleys.
News
Point of view: Let’s create an “Alpine Plan” for all Alpine regions!
The Bavarian Alpine Plan celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2022. Alpine spatial planning has proven here that it is predestined to find solutions to the pressing issues of the day. Similar planning instruments are lacking in many Alpine regions, although we need them more urgently than ever, claim Paul Kuncio, Executive Director of CIPRA Austria, and Uwe Roth, Executive Director of CIPRA Germany.
News
Heatwave aggravated by soil sealing
All of Europe is currently groaning under the heat – and the growing numbers of concreted-over areas are heating up the environment even more. In a background report, CIPRA's Saving:Soils project shows good examples and solutions for the sustainable use of soil and summarises current strategies in the Alpine countries.
News
Save land, save soil
What do we need for a turnaround in land management in peri-urban areas?
CIPRA Publication
Using less soil
Puy-Saint-André in the French Alps has reduced the buildable municipal area by confiscating "ownerless" land, is saving space thanks to community housing projects and promoting the supply of local food by means of pasture associations.
Good practice
Roads on a diet
Carinthia/A relies on unsealing and is narrowing kilometres of federal roads. Now they are flanked by green strips and cycle paths.
Good practice
Remain rural and affordable
How the German municipality of Weyarn, close to the city, protects its soil, promotes affordable housing and creates a higher quality of life.
Good practice
Rebuild instead of build
The Austrian municipality of Zwischenwasser on the edge of the Rhine valley is rebuilding instead of building – and doing so at the highest architectural level.
Good practice
Making vacancies visible
The "Plattform Land" draws attention to vacancies in South Tyrolean pilot communities and shows how they can make good use of empty properties.
Good practice
Lively mountain village
The village of Valendas in the Swiss canton of Graubünden shows how citizens can revive their village architecturally and culturally.
Good practice
Climate-fit mountain regions
The "AdaPT Mont-Blanc" project uses a digital toolbox to show what measures are available for adapting to climate change at the spatial planning level.
Good practice
Affordable primary residences
Second homes notwithstanding, the municipality of Zermatt/CH wants to secure affordable housing for the local population.
Good practice
Alpine soils: allies in climate protection
The soils of the Alps make a decisive contribution to climate protection. But intensive land use and rising temperatures are endangering them: not only are they losing their valuable function as carbon reservoirs, but they may even become a source of greenhouse gases themselves.
News
Saving land, saving soil
In the Alps and beyond, land is built up every day and valuable soils are lost. The project "Saving:Soils" shows alternatives and develops solutions together with pilot regions.
News
Eco.mont special issue: Biosphere Reserves in Mountain Regions
On the occasion of 50 years Man and the Biosphere Programme the Austrian MAB National Committee has organized and financed a special issue on Biosphere Reserves in Mountain Regions in eco.mont. The special issue contains 16 articles from four out of five MAB regions.
Publication
Saving:Soils
[Project completed] With its project “Saving:Soils”, CIPRA is working for a trend reversal in the use of land in peri-urban areas in order to put scientific findings into practice, make pilot examples visible and encourage imitation.
CIPRA Project
For drinkable water
In a referendum held at the beginning of July, Slovenia’s citizens voted by a clear majority in favour of preserving the shore and coastal zones. In doing so, they overturned a new law that would also have affected Alpine waters.
News
Alpine plants: persistent and endangered
Spiked rue, glacier buttercup, saxifrage: the habitat of such alpine plants is shrinking with the glaciers, as a recent study shows. In addition to climate change, mountain plants are also suffering from nitrogen deposition.
News
Where pesticides do not belong
On children’s playgrounds, in schoolyards and at the marketplace: researchers from Italy, Austria and Germany detect 32 different agricultural poisons in public places in South Tyrol.
News
Alpine landscape is not renewable!
Landscape is a key to negotiating social and political issues. CIPRA has taken up these issues as part of its Alpine-wide priority theme “Landscape” 2019-2020. This position paper, which was developed in a broad and participatory process with CIPRA representatives, young Alpine women and experts from all Alpine countries, is the conclusion of this priority theme.
Position
Re-Imagine Alps
[Project completed] Relations between humans, and between humans and nature, are the focus of the “Re-Imagine Alps” project. People take responsibility for their environment when they feel concerned and involved. Landscape here serves as a frame of reference and focal point for the perception and communication of sustainability issues: various relationships, memories and visions are illuminated in respect of, by, and for landscape in the overall Alpine context. Responsibilities and obligations grow out of ideas and relationships.
CIPRA Project
Nature providing services in the Alps
Whether mountain forests that protect us from avalanches and clean our air, or rivers and alpine pastures that provide us drinking water, energy or nourishment: in the AlpES Project ten partner organisations from six alpine countries have evaluated and documented ecosystem services for the past three years. They will present their results on 21st and 22nd November 2018 at a Final Event in Innsbruck/A. Press representatives are kindly invited to attend.
Press/Media release
Underestimated soil
We cannot breathe it, we cannot drink it, and yet it forms the very basis of our lives: soil feeds us, is home to us, protects us. Why has its importance hardly been recognised until today?
News
speciAlps
[Project completed] Grasslands, marshes, hedges, biotopes and woods are examples of natural treasures and biological diversity that are of great value to alpine regions and municipalities. Not only do they offer a habitat for plants and animals, but also humans value functioning natural areas for their attractiveness and the quality of life they offer. Nevertheless, –these areas have much more potential than we often realise and there is much more every municipality can do!
CIPRA Project
Hochparterre: Constructive Alps
In a special issue of the architecture magazine Hochparterre the four winners and all the nominees of the final round of Constructive Alps, the International award for sustainable renovation and new building in the Alps. In German with English summaries.