Should ski resorts be run by suits ... or farmers?

A snowHead

Wear The Fox Hat, I'm not saying that large corporates are better than locals; they may be worse (although I tend to rob@rar.org.uk's view, that the distinction is not a real one). I am saying that you can't rely on anyone with a financial interest in a ski resort to look after the environment and so on. It needs external regulation. FWIW, I favour (genuine) local ownership over non local ownership for other reasons (not that I have strong views).

A snowHead

richmond, it might not work in the UK, but this is Switzerland Very Happy

More to the point, it's assumed protection of the environment is in their own interest.

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ise, yes but Switzerland is almost unique in the world, after all where else in the world is the concept of "putting your rubbish in the bins provided" a contagious condition ? Laughing

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ise are you suggesting that the Swiss are not motivated by financial self interest?

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richmond, I think he's suggesting that with the Swiss financial self interest does not always come first, I know of areas where ski lifts have remained despite their making regular losses because the locals wanted them to stay and other areas where enviromental concerns have dictated that no lifts will be built despite there being enormous potential for skiing if they had been

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richmond, of course they are, there's no particular reason we have to destroy the country to make a bit of money though. It's just not the only motivation. But, the proof of the pudding's in the eating, excessive commercialisation simply is not of a feature of anything here particularly ski stations (with a couple of minor exceptions).

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davidof, Tignes is (or at least was initially) owned by locals, as I understand it.

I'm afraid that my scepticism remains. I don't know enough about Swiss (or any other) planning controls to know to what extent the development of Swiss resorts is controlled by government. I do know that Swiss farmers receive large subsidies which enable them to continue a (relatively) traditional land use pattern, which contributes greatly to the attractive nature of the Swiss alpine regions; this suggests that left to their own devices, they might behave differently. The economics of farming are of course very different from the economics of ski resorts.

One thing which may be happening (I hope that it is) in Switzerland and elsewhere is an understanding by resort owners that short term gain may be replaced by long term loss if they don't look after their areas properly. Limitation of visitor numbers not only by limiting accomodation but by limiting lift ticket sales may pay in the long run. To what extent is this happening? Does anywhere in Europe set a max number of dialy lift ticket sales?

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ise. First point. I realise that. I was making the point that Swiss farmers (in and out of ski areas) appear to require subsidies to persuade them to farm in a traditional (and desirable) way (or possibly at all). They don't apparently do it for the love of the land, patrimony or other non financial reason. As you say, these are some of the local people who will own/run ski resorts.

Second point. The connection is; are ski resorts locally run or not) taking a long view and doing something to preserve the environment by limiting the number of skiers using the resort at a time, or are they milking them for all their worth (alongside their subsidised lilac cows)?

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richmond, you don't understand Switzerland at all, it's the reverse, we, the wider population choose to pay Swiss farmers to look after the environment.

Your second point doesn't make much sense, the reason some stations limit lift tickets is their lift capacity, managing price through supply or demand or just simple rationing to preserve some exclusive cachet.

You know it makes sense.

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richmond, it's not strictly true the farmers have to be able to afford to live, they cannot do so off the earnings from the average mountain farm, in much the same way as our own hill farmers have problems doing so. If the farmers were not there to look after the fields then someone else would have to maintain it and they'd have to be paid so they could afford to live.

It sounds to me like you'd like everyone to live in a comunist socity (i.e everyone works for the common good) which we all would in the ideal (Star Trek) world but sadly as evidence from both the USSR and China shows us it does not work

A snowHead

D G Orf, I understand that the economics of farming are not the same as the economics of ski resorts. I'm just making the point that locals are no more or less likely (or only a little bit more likely, at best) to be reliable custodians of their locale than someone else, without outside intervention.

The question is whether suits or farmers should run ski resorts. Some people said 'Farmers, because they'll look after the place better.'. I'm saying, 'No, they won't.'. I'm not saying whether that is good or bad.

ise, I'm not saying that they lack comittment or that subsidising them is a bad thing. From what I've seen, it works well; I even like Rivella, one of the side effects of subsidising dairy farmers. I daresay that the farmers like it better than doing whatever they'd do if they didn't have a subsidy. Excellent, everyone's happy, me included (if anyone cares).

I am saying that the fact that the farmers require money to operate in a reasonably environmentally friendly way with which the rest of the Swiss are happy suggests that the same will be true for ski resorts; if you want them to be operated in an environmentally friendly, sustainable way, you'll have to encourage that with money. That's fine, I have no problem with it, but it gives the lie to the suggestion that locals will look after the area just because they're locals; they'll look after it because that's how they make the most money. The same will be true of suits.

I'd rather see the subsidy go to local farmers than to non local suits, but that's not because the resort will be any better or any more sustainable.

A snowHead

richmond, many farmers have a deep love and knowledge of the countryside and thus tend to be better custodians than people who are more intrested in buisness, the problem is that without assistance they cannot afford to do so

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davidof, Very interesting post, thanks Perhaps the thread could now do with splitting into Swiss FarmersvOther Nations' Farmers or Suits, as it seems that the Swiss farmers seem to behave differently to French ones at least. What about the Austrian or Italian Farmers, anyone ?

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D G Orf, Spot on.

snowbunny, The Swiss are definitely very different to other nations. Nowhere else are you likely to be hooted at by every car passing for eating a doughnut in the street! In my experience the Swiss (all of them) really do care for their environment, but why shouldn't mountain farmers also have electricity, washing machines, cars, telephones and all the other stuff we take for granted? If there were no subsidies for hill farmers (Swiss or otherwise) there would probably be no hill farmers at all. In that secenario would governments spend money to maintain the land? I doubt it.

I still generally hold to the belief that locals are more likely to look after the environment than outsiders, but why should that exclude their making a decent living? Some development is helpful to locals, but most (in my experience) have an eye to future generations, who just happen to be their children, and their children's children.

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Nick Zotov, without grazing, a great deal of it would go to bracken and brambles. The natural cover for most of UK was mixed deciduous forest - which was long ago cut down for ships and fuel and is unlikely to regenerate successfully except over a very very long period.

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kuwait_ian, interesting. Come to think of it, isn't the forestry commission planting deciduous forest, now? I have also noticed on a property I don't have much time to garden, a lot of naturally seeded tress appearing (particularly beech, for some reason). So maybe naturally seeded trees would occur more quickly than you suggest. Picturesque though hill farms are, maybe some change is not bad. Don't have a hard line on this - just speculating.

Nick Zotov, don't forget that trees will grow better in a garden which tends to have better soil and is sheltered than on say a poor soil hillside which is windblown and has things like rabbits to eat the new shoots

You know it makes sense.

Nick Zotov, yes I believe the FC have decided that acres of subsidised conifers are not the right thing nowadays and are going for mixed deciduous with some hardwoods in future. Certainly much nicer on the eye than pines. If slower growing. When I was a boy scout, the contour ploughing in the Scottish Borders for the pine plantations was a major hassle in hill walking. They used something like a D9 and created deep ditches into which the seedlings were planted. The ditches were just too wide to step over comfortably and the rims tended to break up if you tried to jump. If you were going at right angles to them, we usually had a few tumbles. Luckily nothing broken.

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there is very little market now for conifers in the uk, and with the costs involved in felling etc in some cases they are carring out selective felling and replanting with decidous, or in other areas they are slowly removing the whole wood, in a way that still maintains the soil cover to stop errosian and returning it to heathlands

A snowHead

richmond, I don't where the evidence is for locally owned resorts balancing self-interest against the environment, I doubt if there is any but the evidence against large corporations is clear. The only significant development of any note in the Alps recently has been the Arcs 1950 'village' and hundreds of very old mountain pines were chopped down to facilitate the development. Interestingly the Blancs who were the original developers of Les Arcs were firmly opposed but it still got built.

A snowHead

Surely the thing that makes the difference for the visitor is whether the locals actually live and work in the village. Most of the French resorts such as Tignes are abandoned in the summer, Totally empty. There are no good mountain restaurants in Tignes (or in the town, really) because no little local guy turns his old shed into a restaurant. Everything is plastic. Right down in the old village below the dam, thats where you find the good restaurants

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snowball, That only applies to the purpose built resorts. Even large resorts like LDA which were founded on original communities still have large numbers of "natives" living in the area, and as it's been their home for many, many generations they do have a vested interest.

Nick Zotov, I think, to an extent, you've missed the point. Hill farms (in any country) are not there to look picturesque, and this has absolutely nothing to do with it. It's a way of life that goes back generations. When people were forcibly ejected from their homes in Scotland, it was called the Highland Clearances. Is this economic forcing of people from their land any better? This is not a JOB we're talking about, it's a way of life - it is these people's lives!

Here in LDA the only part of the town that was built by big business is the "Village", which is a hideous concrete monstrosity (now renamed Les Deux Alpes 1800). All the rest of the town was built piecemeal, and apart from Le Diamant in the centre most of the buildings are not too revolting. BTW the local who sold the land for the Village did so in order to help open up the ski-ing business, and the person he sold it to reasonably immediately re-sold it for a massive profit! Don't believe me? Go and talk to Madame Tessa - he was her husband!!

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Should ski resorts be run by suits ... or farmers?

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