2010 has been the Year of Biodiversity, intentioned by United Nations http://www.cbd.int/2010/welcome/ declaring the following: ”It is a celebration of life on earth and of the value of biodiversity for our lives. The world is invited to take action in 2010 to safeguard the variety of life on earth: biodiversity”.
2010 has also been a year when many governments in Europe have manifested the general fear of diversity among the European population, through sanctions as the expulsion of the Romes and the prohibition of the ”burka”, but also as the increasing power of parties that want to stop immigration and send the outsiders away.
What has all of this to do with a tour to Aosta Valley?
I read the program of XIII Cervino Cinemountain http://www.cervinocinemountain.it/ a film festival that takes place in Cervinia each summer, and I find that I am not so far away in my thinking.
Their key words this year are: ”terroir” (landscape with the traditional interaction of man) and biodiversity, and their symbol is a cow. As a mountain film festival the theme is obviously mountain, but they do not only show spectacular mountain films, as some others do. They show how local gets global, and viceversa, how the specific of the mountains of Cervinia and the Alps is to be found with some obvious differences in the mountains of Africa or Patagonia. Men and their life systems here and there are connected and influence each other and so does nature.
The study of something particular, the microcosmos of an Alpine place, can make the world a better place, and love of the specific small scale, helps us understand the bigger system we are a part of.
Cows are good example of these principles.
I want to bring these ideas into the tourist industry, which I am a part of through my work as tour operator and my web sites www.thealps.com and www.monterosa.com
One of my ways is to show people that the Alps exist even when the ski lifts are closed. Moreover, it is even easier to discover the genuine nature of the Alps when the ski lifts are closed.