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Alpine organizations celebrate 25 years

19.10.2016

The tri-national youth tour of Mont Blanc concluded with a celebration of the Alpine Convention, Espace Mont-Blanc and ProMONT-BLANC’s respective 25 year anniversaries. The three organizations joined together for an evening dedicated to young people and their role in the future of the Alps and, in particular, of the tri-national Mont Blanc area.

Marianna Elmi and Nathalie Morelle delivered greetings from the Secretariat of the Alpine Convention in Innsbruck, Germany and presented the Alpine report on demographic change. Espace Mont-Blanc, an initiative of transboundary cooperation bringing together the 35 municipalities around Mont Blanc, described and outlined its Strategie d’Avenir, or future strategy. Finally, the tri-national NGO ProMONT-BLANC let the 12 youth ambassadors, ages 20-25, that participated in the Tour du Mont-Blanc present their impressions from the five-day tour and their innovative proposals for the future. ProMONT-BLANC selected the French, Italian and Swiss youth ambassadors according to their motivation to become future ambassadors.

During their transfrontier tour, the youth ambassadors were accompanied by different mountain experts, also from the three countries, for one or two days including during the evenings in the mountain huts.

The mayor of Chamonix and French Vice President of Espace Mont-Blanc as well as other present politicians spontaneously promised to set up and finance a tri-national youth parliament for Mont Blanc in order to include the youth’s valuable ideas in the future actions of Espace Mont-Blanc.

The official part of the evening culminated in a debate about the future involvement and possible tasks of the young generation for the protection and sustainable management of the tri-national Mont Blanc region. A dinner with music united the young and old audience in a festive celebration.

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Photo: ProMONT-BLANC