Title: Death In The Alps
Headings: Death In The Alps
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Death In The Alps
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Content: The Alps are the most densely populated high mountain range in the world. The weather of the past two months--overwhelming snowfalls--has emptied many of the areas' resorts and will certainly have an effect on tourism. But in a good season, the Alps are the single most popular tourist region in the world, drawing 120 million visitors per year, who spend a full one tenth of the world's tourism revenue there. In Austria, tourism is particularly important. It represents more than 6 percent of the country's GDP, and pays a higher proportion of local salaries than anywhere else in the world. Resorts in Austria, along with many in Switzerland and France, are under enormous pressure to keep revenues up. That means guaranteeing good skiing. With less snowfall in the lower valleys in recent years, developers have begun building resorts higher and higher up in the mountains, in areas that lack the natural avalanche protection offered by trees. This sort of development worries environmental groups like Greenpeace, which believe that global warming has forced skiers into high-altitude, more avalanche-prone areas. " Above 1,500 meters, the natural protection from avalanches through forests is limited," says Erwin Mayer, a Greenpeace climate expert. "