13 minute read
Love Me Tender
Last summer, a young girl and her grandmother, both visitors to the area, were enjoying a walk along Telluride’s River
Trail when they encountered a woman picking up trash. The girl asked the woman, who happened to be Telluride Mayor DeLanie Young, what she was doing. Recalls Young, “I said ‘Well, unfortunately, some
people throw trash on the ground here and that’s not good for the animals or the river, so we are trying to clean up.’ ” Their interest piqued, the girl and her grandmother joined in on what was a community cleanup day. In doing so, they became part of a wider movement that seeks to use messaging and initiatives to encourage visitors to become active participants in protecting and preserving beautiful and pristine places like this corner of the San Juans. What those messages and initiatives are and how to make them stick, while also maintaining quality of life for locals and managing the tourism that underpins the local economy, have been coalescing under the term “sustainable tourism” for some time. More is now also in the works, driven by a deepening sense of urgency as the concept evolves further throughout mountain destinations in response to a pandemic-induced demand for the outdoors. >>
Sustainable what ?
The United Nations Environment Program defines sustainable tourism as “tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities.”
Says Town of Mountain Village Business Development and Sustainability Director Zoe Dohnal, “There is a balance between our economic growth, our standard of living and protecting our environment. Sustainable tourism is finding the balance.”
Mountain Village’s new environmental efficiencies and grant coordinator, Lauren Kirn, adds that “sustainable tourism should make a place better for the people who live and work there, for the people who visit and for the environment, and make sure we preserve resources for future generations so that we can continue to realize social, economic and environmental benefits.”
Young describes her answer as looking at the “bigger picture”, saying, “Sustainable tourism is a buzzword right now, but for me it goes much deeper than just the impacts that tourists have on our community and our environment. It has to do with the sheer volume of visitors and our carrying capacity, which is a much larger question, one that I think we are struggling to define. In lieu of having that answer, we are whittling away at smaller pieces for now by focusing on personal actions we can all take to make a difference.”
For the Telluride Tourism Board’s Kiera Skinner, sustainable tourism “is adapting to the changes and needs of a community and its visitors and creating a long-term vision and plan to preserve our environment, community and economic sustainability. At this point in time, we are focused on managing and educating our guests in an effort to reduce impact on our resources. After the Great Recession, our focus was on recovery and marketing to support our businesses and boost the economy. It is ever-changing and our job is to evolve and sustain throughout the various cycles that the economy, our community and environment endure. We adapt to near-term needs, while also factoring in the long-term sustainability of the destination to preserve the integrity, local quality of life and guest experience.”
Although sustainability has long been a focus for the area, the past two years have elevated the concept due to an increased demand for the outdoors during the pandemic. Fundamental to these efforts has been raising awareness among visitors. Says Dohnal, “A big part of sustainable tourism is that this place is our pride and joy. I think it’s important for us to define our culture within the tourism experience and encourage visitors to fit into that culture.”
“It’s also important that we create clear expectations,” Kirn adds.
Young says, “Our public lands are being loved to death and it’s imperative that we educate people on smart and safe practices in these outdoor, rural places. The education piece is our most successful tool; it is our least expensive tool and it should be happening consistently >>
Tony Demin
A HISTORY OF SUSTAINABILITY
It’s worth noting that, locally, sustainability is nothing new. The very existence of the Telluride Ski Resort, for instance, derived from a locals-driven effort to shift from an economy based on mining to one based on recreation. The push began in the 1950s and contributed to the founding of the Telluride Ski Resort in 1972. The 1978 closure of the last commercial mine in the area sealed that transition.
Throughout the 1980s, concerned citizens acted locally on a number of environmental fronts. In 1984, the Telluride Institute was established by a group that included the daughter of the ski resort’s founder. Today, TI works to foster the transition to a sustainable world and is much-loved for its annual Telluride Mushroom Festival. The Telluride Mountain Club took root in 1986 to promote avalanche education, evolving to include advocacy for responsible behavior in the backcountry and a comprehensive, well-maintained trails network. In 1988, locals successfully halted proposed logging on nearby Sheep Mountain, a victory that inspired the founding of Sheep Mountain Alliance, a nonprofit focused on preservation and protection.
By the 1990s and 2000s, the area’s increasing popularity with visitors placed keeping adjacent wildlands wild at the top of local to-do lists. These efforts led to >>
the preservation of 320 acres in Bear Creek Canyon in 1995 and later the 570 acres west of the town of Telluride known as the Valley Floor. The Bear Creek acquisition also led to the founding of the San Miguel Conservation Foundation, which has gone on to preserve more than 10,000 acres of land in the area.
Another astute move from this time? The Gondola, which opened in 1996. This free public transportation system is powered by onsite solar arrays, as well as offset by renewable energy credits, and removed the need to travel between the two towns by vehicle. Says Lauren Kirn, “The Gondola is probably the most impactful, most visible thing we have in terms of sustainable tourism.”
Underpinning all of this were increasingly green local governments that created environmental advisory groups, passed eco-friendly ordinances and drafted climate action plans, a document, Kirn stresses, that crucially serves as a foundation for all other efforts: “Climate Action Plans are key to seeing where our emissions are and then prioritizing the different actions and strategies that we can take to reduce them.”
Facing page, top: Bear Creek Canyon in the mid-1990s with a less-developed Town Park in the foreground. Above, construction work on the Gondola (photo courtesy of Telluride Historical Museum, all rights reserved). Melissa Plantz
COLLABORATIONS HAVE LED TO COMMUNITY CLEAN-UP DAYS AND TRAILS ETIQUETTE 101, AS WELL AS CAMPAIGNS LIKE LIVE LIKE A LOCAL.
and continuously. We’ve been doing that, and in the past couple of years we have ramped up education and messaging significantly.”
Kirn and Skinner both emphasize that another driver of sustainable tourism is tourists themselves. Says Kirn, “Studies show that consumers want a more sustainable destination; there is a definite trend pointing to a shift.”
Skinner cites a 2021 Colorado Tourism Office survey in which 75 percent of participants said sustainability was important in their selection of Colorado as a place to visit, up from 36 percent in 2017. “This wasn’t a surprise to us,” Skinner says. “We were aware of this and have been pivoting for a couple of years now, as have the State of Colorado and other mountain destinations.”
Collaborations & more
So, how exactly are local entities promoting sustainable tourism?
Perhaps most fundamentally, by creating partnerships, in particular between the Town of Telluride, Town of Mountain Village, the tourism board, San Miguel County and area nonprofits like the Telluride Mountain Club. These collaborations have led to the Mountain Club’s community clean-up days and Trails Etiquette 101 messaging, as well as campaigns like Live Like a Local, which came about through a partnership between the tourism board, Telluride Ecology Commission, the Mountain Village Green Team and San Miguel County. It highlights a number of cherished local customs, like robust recycling, ditching single-use plastic and water conservation. It also educates visitors on a number of environmentally dodgy practices prohibited by local ordinances, including idling your car for more than 30 seconds, failing to secure trash and not picking up pet waste. The campaign relies on a series of colorful icons, each with a message aimed at education and encouraging compliance.
Skinner notes that the tourism board recently secured a $40,000 partial-matching grant from the State of Colorado to “promote sustainability initiatives and the education component.” This includes a campaign that targets people who are already traveling to Telluride, or who are thinking of traveling to Telluride, and drives them to a landing page on the tourism board’s telluride. com site that conveys sustainability messaging like Live Like a Local, as well as a separate initiative called How to Visit Right, and more. Says Skinner, “This grant project provides a wonderful opportunity to educate guests about best practices prior to their arrival.”
She adds that the tourism’s board’s concierges, who field inquiries at the Visitors Center and over the phone through Central Reservations, are an important touchpoint for guests. “We have trained our local destination concierge team to educate visitors on outdoors etiquette. They are also essential in managing flow by encouraging visitors to explore our entire region — Mountain Village, Norwood, the West End. This allows us to better manage our resources by spreading visitors across our county.”
Individually, the towns have been busy too, >>
SHOW THE LOVE
Want to show some love to the clutch of local nonprofits working hard to keep our backyard looking and feeling good? Support the San Miguel Conservation Foundation at smcf-landtrust.org/donate; the Sheep Mountain Alliance at sheepmountainalliance.org/donations; the Telluride Institute at tellurideinstitute.org/donate; and the Telluride Mountain Club at telluridemountainclub.org/donate.
over the years investing in infrastructure like free public transportation, bike paths and pedestrianized areas to encourage walking over driving — “If you can, please ditch your car,” implores Young — among other efforts. The Town of Mountain Village has initiatives to promote solar panel use and water conservation and offers free parking and free charging for electric vehicles. Mountain Village is also working on a destination app with the ski resort that will include messaging to promote sustainable behaviors by visitors. And, both the Towns of Mountain Village and Telluride are currently mulling a ban on single-use plastics.
Young points out that these sorts of changes can in turn motivate visitors to adopt new behaviors. “Telluride was the first town in Colorado to pass a plastic bag ban,” she says. “Over the years our returning visitors have gotten used to the idea of a reusable bag.”
Young also touched on another pressing issue in town, the lack of housing for local employees, linking it back to the environment: “Having people live closer to where they work is one of the easiest things we can do as a community to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. For folks who have a lock-off unit or an apartment above their garage, if you want to be a climate hero, open up that space for a local employee, so they can walk to work and don’t have to commute up to 90 minutes each way by car.”
Green stakeholders
Other local stakeholders are uniquely placed to promote sustainability and protect the environment because they sit at the very intersection between visitors and the outdoors.
A participant in the National Ski Area Association’s Climate Challenge, the Telluride Ski and Golf Company has introduced a number of environmental initiatives over several years, including wetlands restoration and a multi-million-dollar investment in more efficient snowmaking equipment that uses less water and energy. In addition, the ski resort’s trail maps are made from recycled concrete and resin, and a local ski patroller makes the resort’s trail signs using eco-friendly cedar. The company has also reduced single-use plastics, and switched to LED light bulbs and paperless billing in its offices.
Such moves are no-brainers, says Erin Kress, the executive administrator for eco-efficiency in the resort’s operations department. “Every employee at Telluride Ski & Golf came to work here because we are passionate about snowboarding, skiing, golfing, mountain biking and hiking.”
Kress notes that the company’s investments dovetail with its framework of eco-efficiencies standards, which are in turn embedded into the operations of each department. “Every season we look to do better than the last, not for recognition but because it is the right thing to do and because we love our mountain.”
Another group that interacts extensively with visitors and the outdoors are local outfitters, the guides who take clients fishing, climbing, jeeping and more. Tim Patterson, co-owner of RIGS Fly Shop and Guide Service, is a former president of the chamber of commerce in nearby Ridgway and a member of the Ouray Recreation and >>
Ryan Bonneau
WALK THIS WAY
An overflow of vehicles parked up at trailheads is no fun. Where possible, walk or use public transportation to trails. If driving is necessary, obey signage and park in a way that respects flora, fauna and others. Find your way to a lesser-known gem by consulting the new Telluride & Mountain Village Trail Map, available in locally distributed issues of the Guide and at the Visitors Center on Colorado Ave.
Conservation Alliance, which recently secured a State of Colorado grant to improve sustainable recreation in the region.
“In a nutshell, finite resources coupled with our growing population and the palpable effects of climate change make it imperative that we pay close attention to our role as outfitters to educate both staff and customers about the ethics of being responsible in our outdoor spaces,” Patterson says. “We’ve always been involved in the push and pull of how to spread out use, in order to send people and their expectations to appropriate areas that may be best suited for them.”
Getting right that balance between bringing visitors into the natural environment while also protecting that environment — and possibly correcting the questionable behavior of a paying client — is tricky but important, Patterson adds. “Our livelihoods are dependent on getting the balance right.”
One concept that comes up time and again in these conversations is that those who live in this beautiful place have long been motivated to protect it. After all, its unspoiled beauty is what drew them to the area in the first place. In turn, visitors may already have that same motivation or, surely, can be inspired to want to keep this special place special.
Skinner remarks, “One thing that I think is unique to our destination is that due to our small size our visitors often feel like locals. There’s not a locals’ bar and a tourists’ bar. Everyone congregates together.”
She continues, “ We are taking this connection a step further and translating the investment and passion our guests have for the community to stewardship. It’s important that they preserve their favorite place for future visits and for the locals who are the heart of the community.”
For Young, it’s also about leveraging the affection the area engenders in people. “I think that visitors come back again and again because they fall in love with Telluride,” she says. “Whatever messaging we provide, it’s important that people respect and care for our home as much as they love it, for however long they are here.”
Says Dohnal, “Everyone who came here to live came for the natural beauty that surrounds us and we feel obligated to protect that. And more and more, the general public is becoming aware of their impact on the environment and they are ready to make an effort when they visit a pristine destination like this.
Adds Kirn, “We just need to give them the tools.”
Motivated by a love for these mountains
