VIDEO | Mountain, the 101st CAI Congress opens:“From here concrete proposals that look to the future”

Minister Pichetto:"The mountain is a sentinel for climate change"

ROME – “We must safeguard the role of the mountains as a water resource, to compensate for the reduction in summer rainfall and long dry periods” taking into account that “the state of health of our peaks, of our mountain territories, is a fundamental indicator for understanding the 'impact of climate change on the country and in the world'. Gilberto Pichetto, Minister of the Environment and Energy Security, says so in the video message sent to the 101st National Congress of the CAI-Italian Alpine Club underway in Rome, saluting its "160 years of life with the mountains in its heart".

Pichetto adds:“I know that in the CAI I have a strong and aware ally in enhancing the potential and unique biodiversity that our mountains express for our Italy, in its parks, in its peaks loved in the world, and in its artisanal and food and wine production excellence in which a unique culture of our lands is manifested".

The mountain "is particularly exposed to climate changes and is more sensitive than before to even slight changes in temperatures", warns the owner of MASE, "compared to other mountain areas, the Alpine ones appear even more vulnerable, for human activity, for the high population density, for the tourism impact, for the loss of volume of our glaciers".From this point of view, "the suffering that we can see on various fronts, from agriculture to hydroelectric, can be traced back to the great theme of the water resource that comes from our mountains", underlines Pichetto.

In all of this "our plan for adaptation to climate change, updated after many years, places very strong attention on the mountains and its territory and on the actions to be taken - recalls the minister - with multi-sectoral solutions that exploit new technologies and governance activities for quick, effective and useful decisions”.

The mountain”he also feels the issue of depopulation a lot, a theme that is not only social and economic but also environmental, because it is linked to hydrogeological dissection and maintenance, to protection", concludes Pichetto, "defending and affirming this priceless natural capital means protecting the culture, the roots of our country, of the which the CAI is an attentive and historical guardian".

MONTANI:“CAI BE AWARE OF THE ROLE, LET'S REFLECT ON THE LIMITS“

“We mountaineers who frequent the mountains realize that we are inside a cathedral that is falling to pieces, but I wonder and I ask you if we mountaineers are doing enough to make citizens understand what is happening".Antonio Montani, president of the CAI, says this while speaking at the 101st National Congress of the Italian Alpine Club underway in Rome.

“I wish this wasn't a climatology or meteorology conference, and not even a list of good practices, I would like it to be a congress where concrete proposals come out and you look to the future, indicating to ourselves and to politics a direction to follow", hopes Montani, "I would like it to make us reflect mainly on what our self-limitations may be".

In fact "we frequent the mountains for recreational purposes and for our psychophysical well-being, and only 200 years ago mountaineering did not exist", notes the CAI president, "we have the moral duty to ask ourselves what the limit is, to set it and respect it, because only by limiting ourselves as individuals and associations will we have the authority to ask politicians to make unpopular but necessary choices".

The CAI “must have awareness of one's role, we all must demonstrate that as good mountain people, perhaps shy, we are hard workers", concludes Montani, and "the attention we have received from the institutions is the result of the work of building relationships, but we must do more".