Covid-19 has made it extremely hard to visualise a future when once more we can fully exercise our freedom, and plan the vacations and gatherings so often taken for granted. And yet, the majority of the world are only a few weeks, in some areas days, into a strict regime of restrictions aimed to halt…
Environmental concerns blunt ambitions to link the Tirol’s St. Anton and Kappl
Austria's cableway industry wields a significant amount of power in a country so heavily reliant upon the revenue generated by the purchasing of ski and lift passes. In recent years there has increasingly been an unassailable attitude by those proposing new cable cars, extensions to existing infrastructure, and the upgrading of what is already in…
UK: National Planning Policy Framework(NPPF) fuelling greed and environmental destruction
Lax planning laws that foster an attitude of money first, the environment a distant second, are having a devastating effect on Britain's urban and suburban tree cover. Emboldened by the National Planning Policy Framework's (NPPF) central tenet of a presumption in favour of all developments, especially those within a municipality without an adopted Local Plan,…
Slovenia: Sustainable tourism the only way to protect Bohinj from becoming the next Venice or Dubrovnik
Striking a precarious balance of promoting sustainable tourism that doesn't alienate those it wishes to attract to the region remains the municipality of Bohinj's greatest challenge. Increasingly swamped with primarily day tourists, Bohinj had previously been an antidote to Lake Bled - a byword itself for the grim realities of mass tourism and the negative…
Austrian Tirol: A limitless desire for more poses threat to its synonymous landscape
Promoting responsible tourism: what does this increasingly nebulous strapline now represent? Are we expecting responsible tourism to be defined by policies outlined by regional/national tourism associations - or shaped by the actions of those for whom the industry caters? In keeping with many strands of today's society tourists, without guidance or ordinance, are content to…
Slovenia: Maribor’s residents seek to protect local countryside from wholly unnecessary airport expansion
Residents living adjacent to Maribor's Edvard Rusjan Airport are rightly concerned by plans to expand the facility. Doing so could not only see the loss of forest and a large parcel of agricultural land, simultaneously undermining Slovenia's hardwired 'green' credentials, but also ultimately be an exercise in futility now that the modern, fit for purpose…
Europe’s Alpine Regions fail to escape the scourge of plastic litter
The utter indifference some hikers and skiers show their alpine playgrounds never ceases to amaze me. Perhaps naively I assume that the act of communing with the mountains instead of merely viewing the jagged landscape from afar, a la Mark Twain*, and the considerable physical effort in doing so, indicates affection for their surroundings and…
Slovenia: ambitious plans to upgrade Mount Kanin’s iconic cableway
Facilitating Slovenia's highest skiing the eponymous Mount Kanin cableway, in the country's northwest, continues to enjoy an upturn in fortunes since the near catastrophic collapse of several of its carriages in 2013. Remaining closed for several years amid claim and counterclaim that ultimately failed to establish beyond reasonable doubt the cause of the accident, the…
The Tirol’s Neustift Rebuffs Further Cableway Expansion, But For How Long?
The seemingly inexhaustible desire for further, bigger, longer, and higher cableways in the Austrian Tirol and Salzburgerland provinces is to many a distasteful, unquenchable process that will never be sated. The marginal net gains promised by many projects fail to justify the financial outlay but crucially, the environmental scarring of landscapes to facilitate further pistes,…
Slovenia: Iconic Lakeside Tree Symbolizes Humanity’s Devastating Effects on the Natural World
Can a single tree on the eastern shores of Slovenia's Lake Bohinj reflect so much about modern day attitudes many people have towards the environment, especially seemingly expendable items of which it is assumed there is an inexhaustible supply? Notwithstanding an ongoing battle with a devastating attack by a bark beetle, usually only trees…
The Scourge of Litter in the UK: Are the Actions of Some the Responsibility of All?
UK government plans to all but double the on the spot fine for littering is a welcome development in a country increasingly swimming in inconsiderately disposed waste, although punitive measures against those responsible don't tell the whole story, nor create a catchall panacea. On three recent, separate occasions I have come across examples of utter…
Bohinj: Balancing Tourism and Ecological Sensibilities Remains a Huge Challenge
Striking a precarious balance of promoting sustainable tourism that doesn't alienate those it wishes to attract to the region remains the municipality of Bohinj's greatest challenge. Increasingly swamped with primarily day tourists, Bohinj had previously been an antidote to Lake Bled - a byword itself for the grim realities of mass tourism and the negative…
England’s Attitude to Highway Litter on a Road to Nowhere
The amount of litter snared in the undergrowth and verges of England's highways is a national disgrace, with little chance of this most unsightly of problems disappearing any time soon. Although on a purely aesthetic level littering has been a bugbear of mine as long as I can remember, there are several moral and practical…
Will Planning Laws Ever Put the Environment First?
Lax planning laws that foster an attitude of money first, the environment a distant second, are having a devastating effect on Britain's urban and suburban tree cover. Emboldened by the National Planning Policy Framework's (NPPF) central tenet of a presumption in favour of all developments, especially those within a municipality without an adopted Local Plan,…
Alpine Adventures, Soccer, Central Asian Autocracies & Secessionist Politics 