Environment and sustainable development
Nature and agriculture in total harmony, crucible of sustainable development
From landscape maintenance to ski slopes
It takes work to maintain an unspoilt and natural mountain environment, and the first step is to preserve nature's riches : the flora and fauna. Val d'Arly is home to marmottes, chamois, golden eagles, lammergeyers, black grouse and ibex, as well as having peat bogs with a flora that is unique and surprising for a mountain area: Yellow Lady Sliper, Mountain Arnica, and cepe and chanterelle mushrooms.
To maintain and promote this diversity, local councilors have set up a sustainable development programme (imported from Austria), the corner stone of which is the Quality Charter of the Landscape Contract This Contract was drawn up in 1997 to bring together local authorities to promote the Aravis Mountains and the famous “Route des Alpages”.
The certification of the sustainable forest management system at Cohennoz incorporates an approach to water management through maintaining and improving the forest's protection function.
Cohennoz is also part of the European LIFE “forests for water” programme. This pilot scheme for developing the forest ecosystem's role in water management
is being carried out in conjunction with three other sites in France and a number of other sites in Great Britain and Sweden.
The objective is to develop best practice responses to management issues. This involves modifying forest management methods, and setting up simple monitoring and evaluation systems that combine forest management and water management, and that take into account such factors as the role of vegetation in the hydrological dynamics of a basin. At Cohennoz, this means optimising the way the forest, which covers steep and highly unstable slopes that are subject to large-scale hydrological resurgences, is worked. In the longer term, an educational trail explaining the water-forest interactions in this basin will be set up.
Agriculture also has a significant impact on the environment. Val d'Arly is lucky enough to have a large number of farmers and shepherds who maintain the countryside, thereby adding to the beauty of the mountains and the pastures, and producing such excellent ski runs.
Agriculture is omnipresent in Val d'Arly, and a happy symbiosis has grown up between farming, the environment and tourism. The direct result of this can be seen in the unspoilt landscape of our meadows and villages.
