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CAUCASUS CONCERN
By Prince Sadruddin
Aga Khan
A few hours flying
time from Vienna there is a European mountain range longer and higher than
the Alps. The Caucasus, the frontier with Asia stretch 1120 kms and ascend
to 5642m at Mt Elbruz. This cradle of civilization has the most extraordinarily
diverse natural and cultural heritage anywhere in Europe. There are 3000
vascular plants per 10,000 km2 whilst there are more than 40 subcultural
linguistic groups only 12 of which have been committed to writing, with
many more quite distinct dialects which may vary even from one village
to the next. There are over 6 million speakers of non Indo European Caucasian
languages, mostly Georgian a most ancient literate culture which has produced
its own Shakespeare in Shota Rustaveli. Much sustainable development
and health traditional knowledge is in these secret hidden valleys. The
region has long held records for human longevity. There are also relict,
unknown even possibly extinct species. Last year the Musée de l'
Homme went looking for Neanderthal survivors.
But even if remote,
the Caucasus have been exposed to devastating forces of destruction, especially
war. Tbilisi has been razed 70 times in its history and there are presently
deadly conflicts in Chechnya, Nagorno Karabakh, Ossetia and Abkhazia, and
violence and tension throughout since the break up of the Soviet Union.
The rapidly industrializing
and urban regions are exposed to much pollution and there are dramatic
effects of climate change as well as potential natural disasters such as
earthquakes. There is an urgent need to record and preserve the Caucasus
heritage particularly by greatly extending protected areas, demilitarized
zones and reconciliation processes.
Cyberlaps would
like to help our mountain brothers by providing a web encyclopedia of existing
knowledge and a platform for ideas which we will load on to the site and
forward to UNEP who are preparing a Caucasus complement for the 2002 IYM
GEO (Global Environment Outlook) survey. The 2000 GEO survey was published
by our partners Earthscan www.earthscan.co.uk.
Alp Action and IIASA Austria has also published some results from the UNEP/COM
Caucasus project "Guidelines for the Integrated Management of Mountain
Ecosystems" eds Turmanidze, Pitt et al WP-92-69 obtainable from www.iiasa.ac.at
NEW
YEAR GREETINGS
We send to you
---dear cyberalpinists---our best wishes for the festive season and our
hopes for a peaceful new year. May we say how much we have appreciated
your visits since we started up last year. We want to extend our deep gratitude
and thanks to our partner the Reuters Foundation for their generous support
for this pioneer venture which has created a virtual voice for the cultural
and natural alpine heritage. The struggle must go on for we live in troubled
times. The sombre sequence of tragedies in the Alps continues and we must
extend our sympathy and compassion to all those bereft and suffering. The
mountains have always been a dangerous and unforgiving environment but
we cannot fatalistically blame nature alone, even for the elemental forces
of flood and fire, wind and ice. Human nature is often the catalyst
if not the cause in disasters, in creating a lifestyle which pollutes,
accelerates climate instabilities and ignores common sense and conservation
by constantly taking risks for pleasure or profit. Human nature too often
ignores, or worse, abuses the treasures of our biodivesity and the legacy
of our history. But if we are the problem
we must also be the solution and everyone can do something
We cordially invite you to plant a tree in the Kraft Alp Action Green Roof
For Europe programme by sending a Xmas message from our home page. Like
the best things in life this action is free and such a simple gesture will
not only help soak up the greenhouse gases but put Xmas trees everywhere
and keep the healthy image of the mountains so loved by tourists and montagnards
alike.
Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan
ALLING ALL CARING COMPANIES
USE THE REUTERS
ALP ACTION WEBSITE cyberalps.com TO PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENTAL
AND CULTURAL HERITAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS
A MESSAGE FROM Prince Sadruddin Aga
Khan, President of Alp Action
The Internet has
an enormous potential for commerce but also increasingly to protect the
environment, not least in the mountains where everywhere we see degradation
in the air, water and soil, especially a decline in biodiversity, that
threatens the planet itself. Our cultural heritage, also intimately
related to sustainable development, is disappearing as fast. We know that
some far sighted, public spirited corporations are using the web to help
in the task of environmental protection but too few have addressed the
mountain problems. On our Reuters Alp Action website cyberalps.com, we
specialize in publicizing on line the plight of the Alps and building
partnerships and creating synergies with the corporate world as well as
the ngos and the public at large to help to save this endangered ecosystem
and plan for a better future particularly through soft tourism.
We would like to
invite you to work with us in this vital task in the following very specific
ways.
- read our daily
news analyses and features that have made us a leading site on alpine action.
- send us messages
of support, links and contacts, to share with our interactive readership
on the Billboard.
- tell us about
your activities and plans in the fields of protecting the environmental
and cultural heritage so we can report them in our Corporate Initiatives
section.
- contact us to
become a partner in exciting new projects at local level and let us capitalize
on your commitment. Alp Action has already implemented more than 140 widely
publicized projects since 1989. Ask for our list.
- take advantage
of our alpine web knowledge and expert networks for advice and assistance
especially on the media, publicity, publishing, portals and scenario
analysis
We want to put
the dot com into alpine action.
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THE INTERNET AND THE ALPS- POTENTIAL
AND PROBLEMS- YOUR CONTRIBUTION IS NEEDED
by Prince Sadruddin
Aga Khan, President of Alp Action
December 1999
It is a great pleasure
to greet you as we approach the millennium, and on the first birthday of
the Reuters Foundation Alp Action website www.cyberalps.com.
We should be modest
however about the millennium which is a celebration only for a part of
mankind, whilst the last 2000 years are only a drop in the bucket of the
evolution of nature and culture in the Alps, which extends over millions
of years.
The World Wide Web
invented here in the Alps at CERN in Geneva is ten years old, (the Internet
is 30) but technically is more like a vintage car which may breakdown on
the information superhighway, especially if the pessimists are right about
the Y2K bug. There are nonetheless some impressive statistics. There are
now over 200 million people in the world who use the Internet. That
number is doubling every two years and will increase more rapidly as the
net uses cellphones and wireless. In the Alps, at least in Switzerland,
a quarter of the population use the Internet, mostly from work, online
for 16 hours a week. Emails are most popular. In some countries (Iceland
leads the way) more than half the population use the net. But there are
big challenges ahead. We now have the hardware, the computer frames and
the software programmes but we still lack the input of enough scientific,
independent and ethical knowledge to help solve the problems of the
world. At the moment most of the net is trivia or worse. Some estimates
say that over 80% of hits are for pornography sites.
Standards and a frame
of law are urgently needed on the net as elsewhere in the globalization
revolution, a point dramatically illustrated at recent world trade talks
in Geneva and Seattle. Freedom should not be confused with anarchy and
should not compromise the protection of the environment.
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SUSTAINABLE
TOURISM IN THE ALPS
By Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan
Tourism is the world’s largest industry
having an annual turnover of 444 billion $US and mountains are an
important part of the this industry having a share of about 20%, more than
half of which is concentrated in the Alps, probably the world’s most saturated
tourist region as well as being perhaps the most fragile ecosystem. Probably
150 million visitors come to, or through, the Alps every year in
nearly 50 million vehicles, on more than 400,000 kms of sealed roads, sleeping
in 5 million beds.
Such a massive influx
has huge environmental effects and makes imperative that there is a policy
of soft tourism, favouring rail for example. At present only about 1 in
6 visitors travel by train in the region. Much more than this is needed
however including more protected areas. Less than 5% of the Alps is in
national parks.
>And last but not least there is more need
for tourists and residents themselves to respect the environment. Despite
all the commandments and entreaties in every tourist office and along every
path there is still too much litter, too many fires as well as wanton destruction
of rare fauna and flora and desecration of the cultural heritage.
Dear cyberalpinists -- we need new messages and a better use of new media
like the Internet on which I am communicating to you now. To encourage
you to come forward with innovative proposals cyberalps .com is pleased
to open a contest on --What can be done to promote soft tourism in the
Alps? Entries should be sent to alpaction@bellerive.org or to Alp Action
PO Box 3006 CH 1211 Geneva 3 Switzerland. Entries should be no more than
250 words in length in English or any other Alpine language. Entries may
be from individuals or groups. Closing date 1 January 2000. The winning
entry will be published in full and all other worthy entries will appear
on the site too and be given a special certificate from Reuters - Alp Action.
The best proposal could have a financial support by Alp Action. A summary
of recommendations will be sent to the major tourist organizations. Tell
your friends about the contest. Thanking you in advance for your help.
HEALTH AND
ENVIRONMENT
by Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan
Dear cyberalpinists. It is a truism, but worth repeating that human health
in the Alps, or indeed any ecosystem, depends on a healthy environment,
---- clean water and air, a thriving fauna and flora in unpolluted habitats
based on sustainable development, in short the good things of life itself.
The very word health in English is derived from the same root that also
gives holism, holiday and holy. All is linked and there is something
sacred about preserving the natural and cultural heritage. In modern management
jargon there should be a positve optimistic ethic where health and development
strategies should all interlock for the common good to promote growth
and improve the quality of life.
We also know that there are “bads” as well as goods in modern or indeed
all history. The ancient Manichean philosophy, and much Alpine legend and
literature for that matter, talks of a constant battle between good
and evil, between sickness and health, between life and death; the former
to be achieved by simple if austere life styles and traditional wisdom
close to nature. Most of the bad things we face in the mountains today
are man made --- the pollution and greenhouse effect created by excess
carbon consumption, the wasteful and excessive use of resources, the wars
and conflicts, the inquities and ineqities of a materialistic society---
all of which have very adverse health effects even in the richest societies.
Of course there are still the natural hazards as we saw in the terrible
snows this February but more people are killed on European roads everyday
than died in the “avalanches of the century”this winter .
But there is much hope. For if the problems are largely man made then so
too can be the solutions. To traditional wisdom we can add appropriate
technology and modern medicine. More than that, the protection of the environment
and the prevention of health problems need better communication and dialogue
amongst the different actors, more “horizontality” to use Dr Brundtland’s
word, more partnerships -- public, private and popular. We hope that the
rapidly expanding world wide web to which our cyberalps.com site is committed
will start to engender the necessary cooperation and trust through virtual
interaction, in much the same way as our 140 Alp
Action projects have done between the corporate world and the grass
roots over the last ten years.
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