Job In Tourism > News > News > Green that blurs the sight

Green that blurs the sight

Di Antonio Caneva, 3 Settembre 2004

The Green Schooner has just issued the data on the state of our sea, and we heard with relief that environmental awareness is improving, which is an important factor for those working in tourism. It sometimes happens, however, that ecological sensitivity turns into attitudes that bear no relation to respect for the environment, and should rather be classified as neurotic.
I have recently come across some of these “champions”. At the end of my summer holidays, I was driving in Alta Badia with my family to reach Bolzano and the highway which was to lead us to Milan. At San Martin in Badia, our cat – travelling in its cage – got sick and forced us to stop the car to clean up. Under the cat’s cage there was a stack of newspaper, which had very much helped to reduce the damage. We cleaned our pet, the cage, and then started to take care of the car itself. We removed the dirty newspapers, which we temporarily laid on the ground, and were beginning to wipe the car seat clean using a bottle of water. A carload of local people was driving by at that moment and, seeing that we were busy, noticed the newspapers, pulled in to the side of the road, and started shouting at us rudely, thinking we had stopped just to download the dirty newspapers. Their attitude was grossly aggressive, and our irritated answer that we were obviously going to pick up the papers before leaving was of no help. No way! Prejudice is hard to die (for those who do not allow it to die), and those people stayed there, pointing at us and speaking among themselves with an air of reproof. They stood their ground (in defence of their Dolomites) until the “filthy Lombards” tidied up everything and left.
No good can come of sectarian attitudes, when the good are all on one side and the bad all on the other, and to colour green does sometimes lead to such excesses, without considering that, in reality, we are both good and bad at different moments – we consume more than we should, and do not give enough thought to how our actions impact on the environment. As, for example, the forest of cableways, chair-lifts and ski-lifts you find in certain mountain areas, to satisfy the holidaymakers (fair) expectations and the local business demands.
You have to go to Mount Plose (near Bressanone) to believe it!

Translation of the Italian
editorial by Paola Praloran

Comments are closed

  • Categorie

  • Tag

Articoli Correlati