Aragon turns to snow tourism despite the threat of climate change

The delay of the snow in the Pyrenees this year is something that no longer surprises.

This is one of the trends in these mountains verified by the Pyrenean Climate Change Observatory, as well as the increase in the variability of snowfall and the rise in the level of thermal zero from which snow is produced naturally.

Paradoxically, the arrival these days of the first late snowfall has coincided with a new conflict in Aragon over future plans focused on ski tourism.

The controversy arises after the Government of Aragon (a coalition of PSOE, PAR, Podemos and CHA) announced the projects approved to be financed with the European recovery funds oriented to tourism,

since 26 million euros of the 33 requested by the region will go to connect the ski resorts of Astún and Formigal.

This new commitment to the snow sector, "star tourism sector" for this regional executive, is being criticized for different reasons.

In the first place, because it includes the construction of a cable car of more than eight kilometers that would pass through the Canal Roya, a Pyrenean valley of great environmental and cultural value.

But also for concentrating most of the European funds oriented towards tourism, which instead of going to other alternatives are dedicated to new infrastructures for skiing despite the bleak forecasts for snow due to climate change.

is being criticized for different reasons.

In the first place, because it includes the construction of a cable car of more than eight kilometers that would pass through the Canal Roya, a Pyrenean valley of great environmental and cultural value.

But also for concentrating most of the European funds oriented towards tourism, which instead of going to other alternatives are dedicated to new infrastructures for skiing despite the bleak forecasts for snow due to climate change.

is being criticized for different reasons.

In the first place, because it includes the construction of a cable car of more than eight kilometers that would pass through the Canal Roya, a Pyrenean valley of great environmental and cultural value.

But also for concentrating most of the European funds oriented towards tourism, which instead of going to other alternatives are dedicated to new infrastructures for skiing despite the bleak forecasts for snow due to climate change.

As detailed by Juan Terrádez, a technician at the Pyrenean Observatory for Climate Change, the climate models created for these mountains suggest that in the year 2050 the thickness of the snow at the average altitude at which the ski resorts in the Pyrenees are (2,000-2,100 meters) will decrease by 50% compared to the average of 1980-2010.

"It is going to be increasingly difficult to produce snow and for that snow to last long enough on the ground, since it is getting hotter every day," says Terrádez, who stresses that the data already shows how the start of the season is delaying. skiing and the thaw is also brought forward.

"You have to take advantage of it while it lasts, but be careful with the investments, it's still worth diversifying the tourist offer."

"I don't know when there will be no snow, now there is a meter again", responds to criticism and climate forecasts Miguel Gracia, president of the Provincial Council of Huesca, the entity behind the project selected by the Aragonese Government to unite the ski resorts of Astún and Formigal.

“I don't discuss climate change, but technology has advanced.

In 2002 or 2003, it had to be 0 degrees for snow to fall, but today with dry weather it snows at +2.5 degrees”.

According to this PSOE politician, who recently left the board of directors of Aramón, the company that manages most of the ski resorts in this community, to avoid problems due to conflicts of interest, this new plan to unite the two valleys "is a decision not only of a territory,

but also a government strategy and an autonomous community that has made a bet, understanding that perhaps as the Olympics fell [the candidacy to organize the Winter Olympic Games in 2030], then the snow sector must be saved in this competitive world.

"In the Pyrenees, more than 60% of the province of Huesca is protected and this conditions us many things",

comments Grace.

"We have very little control [of skiable surface], and we have to stay in the internal market of Spain with a snow that obviously has to be competitive with Baqueira Beret, with Andorra and with Sierra Nevada."

The geographer Eduardo Martínez, who lamented a few days ago in a forum published in

thus adding to the cataract of criticism of the tourist plan, thinks very differently

"I never thought I would have to write in favor of the natural state of the Royal Channel.

I naively believed that her qualities, so evident, made her inviolable, that anyone with a minimum of love for the mountains, knowledge, sensitivity and respect would admire and protect her”.

Another of the well-known figures that has come out against it has been the athlete Kilian Jornet, who on social networks expressed his rejection of the union of ski resorts: “Destroy the Canal Roya, a valley of great natural and cultural interest —in process to be declared a protected area— to extend for a few years an economic and tourist model that is doomed to disappear... all with European funds for sustainable transformation”.

For Paco Iturbe, spokesman for the Platform in Defense of the Mountains of Aragon, "the Canal Roya is one of the emblematic places of the central Pyrenees, a true natural and cultural sanctuary of Aragon."

“This valley is a geological marvel, it is shaped like a channel (in a U) due to its glacial origin, but it is also mixed with volcanic remains, due to the nearby mount of Aneyet.

In addition, its high mountain flora and fauna are tremendously valuable.

And this has been a sacred area for millennia, that's why it has a lot of burial mounds, sites, dolmens, ”he says.

"When the dictatorship ended and democracy began, the Institute for the Conservation of Nature (Icona) drew up a list of spaces to be protected in Aragon and the first of all was Canal Roya, although successively it has not been protected", the spokesperson points out. from the platform.

“The edge of this channel is right on the border with France, if you throw a stone on one side or the other, both have the same natural values, but the French side has the maximum protection, as it is the Parc National des Pyrénées” explains Iturbe.

“However, about 15 years ago, a decree-law was approved that initiated the protection of the area as the Anayet-Partacua Natural Park, that decree-law is still in force and once you start protecting an area, it cannot there may be a project that violates the values ​​that they wanted to protect”.

Support of the municipalities

For its part, the Government of Aragon defends the decision made in a written response sent to EL PAÍS: "The project for the union of the stations of the valleys of Aragon and Tena has the support of all the municipalities of the Pyrenees and has as a priority objective to strengthen the entire area as a benchmark for winter sports and create more wealth, without violating any aspect of environmental regulations, ”says the Executive chaired by the socialist Javier Lambán.

"In addition to the investments that have been carried out in the Aragonese regions for years, the management of European funds is added, which are an opportunity that could not be missed to advance in projects claimed for decades, among which stands out the commitment to the union of seasons”.

In Aragon, the defense of the snow sector of the PSOE of Aragon or the Aragonese Party (PAR), which have historically supported skiing, is not surprising, but it is from the other coalition partners.

As Iturbe emphasizes, "the position of the other two government parties, Podemos and Chunta, who had always positioned themselves publicly against these projects, clashes: either they do not protest within the government or they do not count on them much."

The one who has not hesitated to charge against the allocation to this project of 26 of the 33 million requested for tourism has been Álvaro Sanz, deputy of Izquierda Unida in the Cortes of Aragón.

"We did not think that this project would ever be revived, even more so in these conjuncture conditions of climate change," says the politician.

“We were convinced that the resources for the reactivation in the regions in which the snow monoculture plays a fundamental role were going to be used, on the one hand, to improve the resilience and adaptability to climate change of the stations that there already is, and, on the other hand, to the change of productive model, but one thing or the other”.

For Sanz, "neither with nor without European funds this makes any sense in the medium and long term", since he considers that it is "a first division environmental destruction".

But the representative of Izquierda Unida assures that in this case it is especially striking, since "they want to use European funds that have environmental sustainability as a fundamental axis."

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