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The city is a title holder because...
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The jury recommends that the title of "Alpine Town of the year 2015" goes to Chamonix, France.
The reasons, which follow the aims of the Alpine convention, taken into account by the jury for supporti...
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The jury recommends that the title of "Alpine Town of the year 2015" goes to Chamonix, France.
The reasons, which follow the aims of the Alpine convention, taken into account by the jury for supporting this decision, are described in the following paragraphs.
Elements put forward by the city of Chamonix to support its candidature:
1. 2015 is the 150th anniversary of the climax of the Golden Age of Mountaineering. Important international events, associating as well Zermatt and Grindelwald in Switzerland and Valtournenche and Courmayeur in Italy, will be organized for commemorating this event and to pay a tribute to the Alpine guides and alpinists. More than 10 exhibitions will be organized during 2015, as well as conferences, excursions, film projections, concerts and so on.
2. Chamonix is part of the "Plan Climat Enérgie Territorial" (PLANETER). A strategic plan thought to reduce energy consumption and CO2 production. Projects already implemented: the renovation of the video library ("médiathèque") and the adoption of an instrument for territorial energy managing, which uses a geographic information system (GIS) to represent the energy resources of the region and to create a database. To achieve this goal, an INTERREG project has been financed with a municipality in Wallis (Switzerland).
3. More than 90% of the territory of the Chamonix Valley is protected. Chamonix wants now to promote a participant management of the natural resources within this perimeter: scientific programmes, tourism, events and citizen actions are organized within this scope.
4. Implementation of a new strategy for the Espace Mont-Blanc. With the "Stratégie d’Avenir pour le Massif du Mont Blanc", Chamonix becomes part of a transnational group of municipalities willing to manage in a sustainable way the Massif Mont Blanc.
5. Chamonix wants to develop sustainable mobility in the valley. This is, following the municipality, a priority in terms of environment and public health. Within this scope, the municipalities developed the first Plan Climat Energie Territorial. Projects have been developed to increase the public transport structures (buses and trains). Aim: double the number of people using public transports by 2020.
6. Chamonix wants to develop its eco-tourism offer. In that sense, the Valley has been the laureate of the "territoire éco-touristique exemplaire", funded by European (FEDER) and national funds. Three different actions have been promoted within this scope.
Furthermore the city should fully take into account, that unsustainable development projects (e.g. mobility in the mountains like snow mobile tourism activities) are no option for a future oriented development of an alpine region.
The Jury recommends for the Alpine Town of the Year 2015 in regard to transmunicipality cooperation and relationships between alpine towns and their adjacent territories to foster the following important future perspective: to put up onto already existing strategies and realize concrete trilateral and transnational sustainable initiatives of/with the relevant border-municipalities Courmayeur/Aosta, Martigny/Switzerland and others. This would open in the sense of the Alpine Convention a broader and sustainable perspective for the Mont Blanc-Region as a whole.
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