The mountain hut managers: "Sentinels" at the Trento Film Festival The mountain hut managers of the Dolomites World Heritage will be the stars of an event organized by the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation as part of the Trento Film Festival with which they have continued a fruitful collaboration for years. The even takes place on Thursday, 5 May at 5.30 pm at Palazzo Roccabruna in Trento. This will be an opportunity to introduce the #mountainhutlife initiative which was conceived by the UNESCO Dolomites Mountain Hut Managers Network itself in order to talk about their daily activities in person, increase the awareness of visitors and bring about an ever-increasing commitment to sustainability.
#mountainhutlife: The managers show their faces For several years, the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation has been right there with the 66 mountain hut managers who are returning to the "core" area of the World Heritage on a track that includes training, listening and collaboration. The transformations that mountain visits have undergone in recent years have led the managers themselves to reflect on the need to convey to the visitors the purpose of their work, including the limits of an occupation that is, first and foremost, a defence of the mountains. They would like to enlighten visitors as to the day-to-day difficulties to which the requests (and sometimes demands) of the users must be calibrated, particularly with respect to water consumption which, after a winter with almost no rainfall, will be the real test of shared responsibility this summer. Hence the idea, which emerged last November during the annual course organized by the Foundation and held in Primiero-San Martino di Castrozza, of getting involved by communicating directly with the public, a bit like people do in the mountain huts during long days or, even more often, evenings. The many testimonials collected during the first four years of the television program "Noi Dolomiti UNESCO", created by journalist Giambattista Zampieri, will serve as the basis for a series of video clips that will be produced by the managers themselves during the season; the purpose is to inform users of the daily challenges, small and large, of a unique occupation which is highly significant in terms of environmental and cultural protection as well as safety.
The programme The mountain hut managers have to know how to get by in the most diverse situations; they have precise skills and at the same time, they need to adapt them to a constantly changing context. But more than anything, they are the sentinels of the World Heritage. They are the first to see the transformations occurring in the environment and the changes in how people visit it. For this reason, not only will we talk about the #mountainhutlife initiative at the Trento event, but we will give a full perspective on the role of the mountain hut managers as well. The participants will include Mara Nemela – director of the Dolomites Foundation, Roberta Silva – president of the Trentino Mountain Huts Association and manager of the Roda di Vael mountain hut (TN), Marika Freschi – manager of the Pordenone mountain hut (PN), Raffale Alimonta – Alimonta mountain hut (TN), and Mario Fiorentini – president of AGRAV the Association of Mountain Hut Managers in the Veneto and manager of the Città di Fiume mountain hut (BL).
Comparing the design of mountain huts and bivouacs "The way in which we design or add on to a mountain hut shows where we want to go and what kind of future we envisage for mountain tourism and high-altitude visitors, especially if the areas concerned have been recognised as World Heritage Sites." This is how Mario Tonina, president of the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation, commented on the course "Designing for high altitude – The architecture of mountain huts and bivouacs", organised by the Order of Architects of the Autonomous Province of Trento, in cooperation with the Trentino Circle for Contemporary Architecture and made possible through the collaboration of the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation, Trentino Marketing and the Trentino Mountain Huts Association. The programme takes place on 29 April, 13 May and 20 May at the SAT (Tridentine Mountaineering Society) headquarters in Trento, with the addition of a high-altitude workshop on 4 and 5 June in Gardeccia (Val di Fassa). Foto del Bivacco Pradidali, Riccardo Masut
A debate that involves public opinion How are mountain huts or bivouacs designed? How are they integrated with their fragile surroundings? How can functional requirements be synthesised with a focus on sustainability? These are just a few of the questions that have emerged from the debate between specialists into the broader debate of public opinion in recent years. The many aspects at stake range from mountain culture to land use models and the need for active conservation of the high-altitude landscape. "Mountain huts provide something of great value to our mountains," says Trento Order of Architects president, Marco Giovanazzi, "Designing them means merging symbolic value with day-to-day management and environmental issues, which are now imperative."
The need for comparison "The managers themselves, with whom we have been collaborating for years, never cease to question how functional needs can be reconciled with a sense of limitation", adds UNESCO Dolomites Foundation president Mario Tonina. "For us as managers, this is an extraordinary opportunity", confirms Roberta Silva, president of the Trentino Mountain Huts Association. "More synergy is needed between planners, builders, owners, managers and institutions." This idea is also shared by Anna Facchini, president of SAT, who cites two concrete examples: "In 2021, with this awareness that the time had come for a new mode of interaction, we resolved to use design competitions for specific cases of mountain hut renovation or refurbishment. The first two calls for design competitions are currently being prepared for the Pedrotti-Tosa mountain hut in Brenta and the Ciampedié mountain hut in Catinaccio."
Museum heritage of the Dolomites online After three years of work, the involvement of fifty institutions and dozens of cultural operators, the Museums of the Dolomites project, supported by the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation, is now complete and ready to be explored by students and tour operators.
Twelve new thematic galleries to explore The MuseoDolom.it platform has added twelve new thematic galleries, that guide virtual visitors through the natural, cultural and historical legacy of the Dolomites World Heritage in Italian, English and German. The journey takes us through the geology, Dolomites culture, sporting traditions, architecture and role of women over the centuries; these are all stages of a much longer journey during which enthusiasts and museum operators have dialogued and worked together, under the guidance of the team coordinated by MuseoDolom.it founders Stefania Zardini Lacedelli and Giacomo Pompanin, to create a digital space consisting of no less than 2,000 pieces of content that have been produced, collected, edited and sorted. Sharing this content has made it possible for virtual visitors to discover connections, find points of encounter, enrich their own cultural "rucksacks" and enhance their own specific cultural identity in relation to all the others that make up the ethno-anthropological kaleidoscope of the Dolomites.
"Stronger and more creative" If one of the objectives of the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation is to strengthen the dialogue between the valleys and the people who live in them, the "Museums of the Dolomites" project has certainly implemented this and is now ready to become a cultural leavening for schools and tour operators who wish to add cultural depth to their offers. "The project had the virtue of uniting the energies of more than 50 museums and cultural institutions. Thanks to targeted training activities, digital curatorship, and skilfully coordinated online campaigns, these museums have seized the opportunity that digital technology offers communities to rediscover, promote and tell the story behind their regions", emphasises Mara Nemela, Director of the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation. As coordinators Stefania Zardini Lacedelli and Giacomo Pompanin point out, "Digital technology has turned many small collections into one large shared collection, in which the beauty of each part is enhanced by the presence of the others". They describe their experience by explaining how the link between the museums and each individual region has been strengthened; in fact, thanks to the Laboratory of Stories, many enthusiasts have found the inspiration to share family memories and recollections and propose new interpretations. In short, thanks to these three years of work, we can say that the museums in the Dolomites region are now even stronger and more creative.
UNESCO Dolomites Special Award goes to a film on the fate of the Inuit The Bolzano Film Festival Bozen ended on 10 April. As always, it provided an opportunity for people to immerse themselves in arthouse cinema and discover the work of emerging and local directors. Each year, the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation awards a special prize to the work that best represents the values that UNESCO uses as a basis for including a site on the World Heritage list. This year's award went to The Red House (DE/IT 2020), by Peter Bardehle and Francesco Catarinolo; the film documents the work of South Tyrolean extreme athlete Robert Peroni among the Inuit of eastern Greenland.
A bridge between the past and future The jury, composed of Ingrid Beikircher (Vice President of AVS), Roland Dellagiacoma (Scientific Committee of the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation) and Carlo Zanella (President of CAI Alto Adige) unanimously chose the film The Red House, a powerful work describing the dramatic relationship between man and the environment and between sustenance and sustainability. "Since the seal skin trade was banned", the jury summarised in its reasoning, "the inhabitants of the far north have lost their livelihood. This film bridges the gap between the past, when the tradition-conscious local population ensured their survival in an inhospitable world through sustainable hunting – hunting only as much as was strictly necessary to survive – and the modern era, which brings with it the loss of people's traditions and identity. Peroni, through the activity of his shelter, The Red House, gives a very strong signal and assumes responsibility for it. The Red House also stands out for its sweeping nature shots and takes the viewer on a journey through a largely unspoilt landscape".
A refuge for the Inuit (and their identity) Italian writer, mountaineer and explorer Robert Peroni moved to East Greenland in 1980. He lives immersed in the culture of the Inuit, a population in which the economic changes of recent decades have caused an exponential increase in alcoholism, depression and suicide. That is why he founded La Casa Rossa, a shelter that offers work and support to young people who decide to stay.