My advice as a mountain guide on how you can help protect the French Alps

I live in Chamonix and work as an international mountain leader, guiding groups on long distance hikes in the Alps such as The Tour du Mont Blanc and the Chamonix - Zermatt Haute route. 

Since I started working as a guide seven years ago, and especially since Covid, I have noticed that the Alps are becoming over-touristed, with detrimental effects on local communities and the fragile Alpine ecosystem. Glaciers are retreating faster, trails are getting busier and more littered and tour buses are swamping tiny villages. 

Of course, like so many people in the Alps, I rely on tourism to make a living and I certainly do not want to discourage visitors to the Alps! I’d just like to see tourism move towards more sustainable practices. 

My concern for the environmental impact of tourism on the Alps led me to launch a charity called Mieux Donner in July of this year. The aim of Mieux Donner is to educate people about the most effective actions they can take to improve global problems including climate change. Alongside this role, I continue guiding groups in the Alps and advise travel companies on their sustainability policies. 

Here are my top five tips for how to help protect the Alps and tread lightly when you visit:

1. Reduce your carbon footprint through your lifestyle choices

The Alps are warming about twice as fast as the global average, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

In the past two years alone, Swiss glaciers have lost 10 percent of their water volume — as much as melted in the three decades from 1960 to 1990. If we want to protect the glaciers, it is clear we need to reduce our emissions. There are concrete, evidence based actions we can all take to reduce our carbon footprint, but the issue is there is a lot of conflicting information online leading to a huge mismatch between what most people think is effective, and what is actually effective:

What most people think is effective:

What is actually effective

If you were to follow the top three most effective lifestyle choices and you gave up your car, switched to a plant based diet and did not take a transatlantic flight, you would save approximately 6.2 tonnes of carbon per year. All of these actions are great initiatives and set a positive example for a better future. 

But what if you could do even more?

2. Use public transport

Public transport links are excellent in the Alps, especially Switzerland. If you travel to Switzerland, I highly recommend downloading the SBB app which contains all bus and train timetables. If you are travelling to Switzerland for longer periods, it may also be worth buying a half-fare card which costs just 190CHF for the year but entitles you to 50% off all trains. The discount includes famous mountain cog rails such as the Jungfraujoch in Grindelwald and the Gornergrat Bahn in Zermatt - which usually cost 124CHF and CHF114 respectively.

Read more: I moved to France and became a mountain guide

Using public transport not only reduces your carbon emissions, but also air pollution, which is a huge problem in the Alps. Despite what you might think about fresh alpine air, the air quality index is often worse in Chamonix than in Paris, due to the high pressure systems that trap polluted air in the valley. It is not uncommon for schools to have to close here because the air quality is too dangerous for children to leave the house. 

3. Leave no trace

When you hike in the Alps, do not leave anything behind - that includes fruit peel that can take years to decompose. The worst culprit I see on the trails is used toilet paper which is not only disgusting, but also takes years to decompose. If nature does call, make sure you go to the toilet well off the trail and away from any rivers and pack out your toilet paper in a zip lock bag.

4. Travel in small groups, and out of season if possible!

There is nothing worse than going for a peaceful walk in the Alps than when you come across a large group of 20 people clogging up the trail, or enjoying an idyllic lake side lunch to be interrupted by a tour bus of 50 people arriving to get their coveted Instagram photo. The situation is so bad in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland, that they are considering charging an entry fee like Venice to curb the number of visitors. It’s not uncommon to see signs on people’s front doors and gardens telling tourists not to enter their home as it’s not an amusement park! By travelling to the Alps in small groups, out of season, you can reduce the pressure on small communities and help support businesses in the low season. 

5. Donate to the most effective charities 

By far the biggest levers we have to enact systemic change are voting and donating to climate charities. Unfortunately, the majority of climate charities people donate to do not live up to their claims. In fact, 90% of offsetting projects fail to meet their offsetting targets, and even 40% of UN carbon credits have been shown to be ineffective. 

In comparison, highly impactful climate charities can reduce the amount of emissions in the atmosphere for just one euro per tonne. They do this by enacting policy change and technological innovation which can impact millions of people, or even entire continents.

6. Bonus tip! Stay on the trail

Wandering off the trail causes erosion, damages fragile alpine plants and disturbs local wildlife. This is especially important in winter when disturbing animals causes them to lose huge amounts of energy by running through the snow to escape danger. Food is in such short supply in winter, that being disturbed a few times can be the difference between life and death for alpine species such as chamois and deer. 

Jennifer is co-founder of Mieux Donner. You can contact her on LinkedIN or at jennifer@mieuxdonner.org for advice on your donations or to organise an online, or in-person climate presentation (depending on your location).