Apocalypse in the Alps

By Jamie Murphy

Critics warn of a threat from unchecked tourism

The Alpine region is a treasure trove of history, culture and spectacular scenery, all of the riches one would expect to find in Europe. For the Alpine region is the heart of Europe. This season, you can share in the wealth.

--Swiss tourist brochure

Millions already have. As a result, the 84,942-sq.-mi. expanse of peaks, pastures and icy lakes that ranges over seven nations from the Gulf of Genoa to Vienna is reeling from the effects of overcrowding. Trails of beer and soft-drink cans festoon the mountainsides. Slashes that are cut into the forest to meet the demand for ski slopes create avalanches in the winter and mud slides in the summer. Salt scattered over ski runs to harden the snow now fouls water supplies, as do the tons of detergents from hotels and condominiums. Animals that need space, such as eagles, lynxes and hares, are disappearing. The contamination of mountain streams has put 70% of lower Bavaria's fish on the endangered list. And perhaps gravest of all, the forests, ravaged by the encroachments of civilization, are struggling for survival: according to one survey, some 45% of Bavaria's Alpine woods are sick.

In Switzerland, 5.9% of the gross national product stems from tourism; in certain Alpine vacation areas, travelers' spending accounts for up to 80% of the economy. It is this boom in tourism, however, that has led to concern that an ecological apocalypse may be at hand. Says Gernot Patzelt, Innsbruck University's chief ecologist: "We have to define the maximum load, the point beyond which damages will become irreparable."

Although the indigenous population the area is only 7 million (including 16,000 ski instructors), some 40 million vacationers have trooped through the mountains each year since 1980. An additional 60 million day trippers from such nearby cities as Munich, Salzburg and Milan have motored through the passes and hiked through the high pasturelands annually. The Alps, once an almost insurmountable barrier between north and south, are now crossed by some 50 airlines, seven rail services and 30 major highways.

The consequences of this sportive invasion are both visible and dispiriting. The main route up the Matterhorn has been worn as smooth as a dance floor by climbers and is currently closed to all but advanced mountaineers. Austria's Grossglockner, a formidable peak once noted for its splendid isolation, is attacked daily by up to 200 excursionists, most of them aided by ropes and guides. So many would-be conquerors cluster around the trail that the Austrian government has built wooden platforms on many peaks to increase standing space. At Koenigssee in southern West Germany, 800,000 tourists a year come to yell, some of them at the same time: their goal is to hear the echo of their voices rebound from the mountain amphitheater. As one distraught Swiss expert puts it, "We are making this place the Disneyland of Europe."

During the 1962-63 winter season, 2.2 skiers christied across Austria's Last season the number grew to 7.2 To make more room for the vacationers jamming onto the 15,000 ski lifts and cable cars for jaunts down the 40,000 runs carved into mountainsides, some glaciers have been opened to schussers. The great ice rivers are stained a dirty gray with soot and suntan lotion. Glaciers do not recover from this type of abuse. The dirt percolates back to the surface as soon as winter snows cease.

Tourist spoor is in evidence everywhere. Each year the citizens of Obergurgl, Austria, carry 50 large sacks of empty cans out of the Rettenbach glacier. On the Dachstein mountain, where the Schladming and the Hallstatt glaciers meet, 1,300 trash cans continually overflow. In one recent year, litterers left behind 4,500 tons of waste in the Austrian Alps.

One critic sees a pervasive commercialism, in countryside and city, as the villain. Says Leopold Lukschandl, editor of the Austrian monthly Environment: "We sell sunshine by leasing deck chairs and blankets. We sell our beautiful landscape in horrible souvenirs and the tradition of our Alpine population in tasteless evening entertainments where sex in lederhosen is the main attraction."

Some citizens of the Alps appear to be awakening to their environment's steady decline. In 1981, when developers in the Montafon region of Vorarlberg, Austria, wished to increase the capacities of ski lifts, the state government first requested an analysis of the project from the Austrian Federal Institute for Physical Planning. The Montafon, with a population of 15,000, already had 17,000 tourist beds and 52 cable cars and chair lifts. "When we talked to the mayors of the Montafon villages," says Institute Member Diether Bernt, "we asked them, 'Where are the many thousands of new tourists going to park their cars? Where are they going to eat? And where will you put the extra beds you will need?' We had no means to stop the local people, but we could persuade them." Persuasion succeeded. The project was drastically cut back.

A more militant approach is the key weapon of other aroused environmentalists. Representatives of one 300-member group called Robin Wood climbed the towers of a Bavarian castle last year to unfurl SAVE THE MOUNTAIN banners. The 4,500-member Society for the Protection of the Alps has staged sit-ins to block the bulldozers of road and slope construction crews. But the hit-and-run protesters and the gentle persuaders face a long, and dirty, uphill fight. --By Jamie Murphy.

Reported by Sarah Farmer/Bom and Gertraud Lessing/Vienna

With reporting by Sarah Farmer/Bonn, Gertraud Lessing/Vienna