ED: How did your IFALP initiative come about?
LR: Our initiative actually came about around a beer table. It was initially a loose blogger meeting organized by Markus Stadler.
Markus Stadler, who moderates the "Avalanches" Facebook group?
Yes, exactly. He's a well-known author of guidebook literature from Rosenheim and he organized a meeting of winter sports bloggers and alpine journalists. We spent a nice weekend brainstorming about where there were synergies or what projects we could start together.
When was that?
That was in April 2019. We got down to business straight away. We thought about how to set up the website, how to word it and what the right approach would be, for example: "We want more cooperation in avalanche warning" instead of "We demand...".
The joint avalanche report from the Tyrol - South Tyrol - Trentino Euregio project was very well received. There are definitely regions that are interested in joining. Others, on the other hand, prefer to continue modernizing their avalanche reports on their own. The whole thing seems to be highly political and very labor-intensive. How can it work?
The basic idea is to make politicians and the public aware that there is room for improvement. Because we believe that normal ski tourers and freeriders are aware that there are big differences in quality. But that they themselves do not actively come up with the idea of pointing out the urgency of this problem and thus building up pressure so that improvements can be made here.
We do not want to explicitly specify what it could look like. Even if, in my opinion, the new Euregio Avalanche Report is the new benchmark. The system is open source. It would be relatively easy for everyone to adopt and no one would be left out in the cold. We say: work better together. That would be our wish!
In particular, we would like to encourage politicians to make more resources available. This is the only way for them to recognize that a large part of the sporting population is behind this and finally wants to see greater progress in what is actually such a simple problem. In a Europe that is already working together on so many levels...
At the moment, some countries are still cooking their own soup. In Italy, for example, there are two different situation reports for one region. One from AINEVA and one from Meteomont/Carabinieri. On the same day, they issue different reports for the same region, sometimes with different levels!
That's why it's so important that every ski tourer talks about it. And if they can identify with it, support the initiative.
The EAWS, i.e. the European Association of Avalanche Warning Services, is the executive body here. The avalanche warning services know exactly where there is a problem or where there is potential for development. The will to cooperate is largely there. The problem is not so much that some people want to do their own thing. It mainly fails because there is a lack of money and staff. In Carinthia, for example, there is one (!) avalanche warden who is more or less on his own. For an area in the high mountains with thousands of active winter sports enthusiasts and guests. If it fails, what happens then?
The EU has made a large sum of money available for the Euregio project to set up the infrastructure and IT and to find good employees. Compare' the websites of various avalanche warning services. Many are not only outdated for 2020, but an antique.
