“The investment in grass skiing it goes precisely in the direction of identifying sustainable solutions to deseasonalize tourism and allow the survival and development of mountain tourism in a profoundly changed climate framework”, claims M5s councilor Silvia Piccinini.
The investment to which the five-star councilor refers is an initial loan from 50,000 eurosforeseen in the 2023-2025 budget of the Emilia-Romagna Region, to promote and support grass skiing. The resources “will be disbursed in the coming weeks”announced the regional councilor for the Mountains, Igor Taruffi.
This formula therefore desires relaunch the tourism sector, visibly influenced by climate transformations.
In some provinces, such as Parma, Reggio Emilia and Bologna, “various activities are already being prepared” to grass skiing, which is becoming “a significant segment”Taruffi highlights, and it is also important because “we need to deseasonalize the tourist offer”. For this reason, says the councilor, “I confirm the commitment of the Council” in this direction.
If this bet were to be successful, the so-called “White gold” of the mountain ranges of the peninsula (first the milk and then the snow) could therefore change colour. Green gold or, better yet, Emerald.
That said, for the mountains to continue (or return) to being habitable territories, it is always necessary to remember that more essential services are needed for a dignified life, more spaces for aggregation and a plurality of employment: skiing, and skiing on grass (hoping it actually turns out to be an attractive activity), today must fit into a more varied social structure. Otherwise, the risk is to corroborate dependence with a monoculture.
Even on the tourism front we cannot help but talk about plurality: to a recreational offer, such as grass skiing, it is necessary to support with greater conviction an offer capable of developing around territorial peculiarities, enhancing those elements that make a territory unique. And, as we know, the Alps and the Apennines are kaleidoscopic realities, full of singularities, where each valley can boast original and often unrepeatable anthropic and natural elements.
Only by inserting grass skiing into a multi-coloured social and tourist configuration can we hope for a rosy, or rather: emerald, future for this sport.
