Le strade per superare, visitare e proteggere le pareti rocciose. Questioni ambientali dello sviluppo infrastrutturale nelle Alpi francesi (secoli XIX-XXI)

Abstract

This article aims to examine the relationship between mountain communities in the French Alps and rock faces through the perspective of environmental history. A long-term approach allows us to observe the ways in which this relationship was expressed and transformed. In the 19th century, confidence in technology stimulated the construction of mountain roads, some of which were built along rock faces, at the time perceived as a physical obstacle difficult to overcome. Following their opening, many mountain roads attracted tourists in search of picturesque scenery. Since the 1960s, increasing attention to environmental damage has generated an ambivalent approach to rock faces: on the one hand, it has led to proposals to protect them; on the other, such proposals have been hampered by the need to make the roads safe and wide. Legislative constraints, safety measures and ecosystems to be protected have resulted in a complex planning of rock faces that has expressed and still expresses the complexity of the relationships that societies have with mountain environments.

Keywords

• infrastructural development
• mountains
• rock faces
• tourism
• vercors pre-alp