The small village of La Sambuy in the French Alps maintained a small ski resort for decades. Now, 60 years later, the ski lifts are being dismantled because there is no longer enough snow to make the ski area profitable.
Mayor Jacques Dalex explained to Europe 1 radio how the climate situation in the region has changed over time and what impact this has on the place: “Now there is much less snow in winter. This year we were only open for four weeks. The season [alta] It’s getting shorter and shorter and it’s obviously not getting better.”
The mayor told CNN that with costs of 80,000 euros per year to operate the cable cars, the resort is currently suffering an annual loss of 500,000 euros. For this reason, the municipal assembly of La Sambuy decided this summer not to reopen this winter and to dismantle the infrastructure.
And the small village is not the only one undergoing this change. The environmental group Mountain Wilderness reports that 22 cable car systems have been dismantled in France since 2001; another 106 are abandoned. CNN also recalls a study by the scientific publication Nature Climate Change, which predicts that 91% of European ski resorts are threatened by climate change.
However, some residents are trying to reverse the municipal decision. In a petition that has already collected 1,900 signatures, the holiday resort of La Sambuy is described as a “social element of the small town of 7,500 inhabitants” and proposes an alternative economic model: the use of the cable cars in summer, so that tourists especially appreciate the mountain panorama.
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