The climate and the Hajj

MIT news last week published a report on climate change and the Muslim pilgrimage Hajj: 

 Climate change could pose danger for Muslim pilgrimage

When the Hajj comes in summertime, in some years it may not be safe for participants to remain outdoors.

They concluded: "According to a new study by researchers at MIT and in California, because of climate change there is an increasing risk that in coming years, conditions of heat and humidity in the areas of Saudi Arabia where the Hajj takes place could worsen, to the point that people face “extreme danger” from harmful health effects."

The Guardian published an editorial: 

With hajj under threat, it's time Muslims joined the climate movement.

As climate crisis is endangering an age-old sacred rite, environmental stewardship is needed. 

"With approximately 100m plastic bottles left behind each year after the pilgrimage ends, it’s clear that action is desperately needed. "

Tourists and Pilgrims: go home

Tourism is a for a long time contested concept:

Being imperial, unfair, rich-poor enhancing, hedonistic, naturedestroyer, culturedestroyer ....
And specific for pilgrimage routes like the Camino de Santiago the number of pilgrims are rising, new records crushed the next year.
Sure,  this increase is intentional, policy of national and regional government and of commercial corporations. A development that started some 40 years ago.

I looked around to provide you with additional and latest popular developments.
Looked at the pilgrimage route
Looked at some general touristic concerns.

Sometimes there just are too many tourists, too many pilgrims.
So, this blogitem provides an overview of the latest trend in tourism and pilgrimage alike: overcrowding.
And it hints alternative / sustainable tourism.

(China’s Qingdao Huiquan Beach during the height of peak season)

On the pilgrimage route

(photo: dpa Picture-Alliance / Florian Schuh / picture alliance / dpa Themendie)

The Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route saw it's routes becoming more and more crowded. 2017 probably again a record year. Experienced pilgrims use the usual comments: Try other routes or seasons, keep away from  the usual staged etappe endings, overcrowded camino was already an issue 30 years ago, it's nice, cosy and socially, it's not that bad. However: complaints are growing, even on the 'less walked' route like the Camino Ingles.
Like a pilgrim from Colorado just (august 2017, walked in july) reported on Tripadvisor: "Way to many people".Some people don't mind, I do and try to keep away from overcrowded routes.

Four recent articles in French and German newspapers/sites cover the overcrowding.
( use google translate ;-)

Wir sind dann mal weg

Zu viele Jakobspilger: In Spanien wird gegen Urlauber protestiert

( Mass-tourism, we're off then. After Kerkeling's camino book Ich bin dann mal weg. Subtitle of the article: Too many pilgrims: Spain protesting against tourism)
Suddeutsche Zeitung

Pilgerstau am Jacobsweg

Far away from the peaceful tranquility, long human karavans on the way to the pilgrimage town of Santiago de Compostela are driving up prices and hunt away the locals
Die Presse

"Ce n’est pas de la tourismophobie, c’est de l’anticapitalisme" : en Espagne, des activistes torpillent le tourisme de masse

(This isn't tourismphobia, it's anticapitalism. In Spain activists torpede mass-tourism)
Francetvinfo

(Un graffiti "Touristes, rentrez chez vous" dans le centre-ville d'Oviedo (province des Asturies, nord de l'Espagne), le 7 août 2017. (ELOY ALONSO / AFP))

Große Zahl der Pilger sorgt für Ärger entlang des Jakobswegs
Large amount of pilgrims causes trouble along the Way of St James.
Hamburger Abentblatt (this article is published in many other magazins)

Tourisme generic

I'l start with a few headlines..

Is Mount Everest an overcrowded tourist trap?

Machu Picchu to introduce timed ticketing to deal with overcrowding

20 overcrowded sights that should follow the Cinque Terre's example

Over-tourism in Amsterdam

You can click on them to go to the responding article

Protests are growing

Anti-tourism protests spread across Europe

Barcelona residents protest unchecked growth of mass tourism

Venice residents protest against tourist influx

Protest against "tourist colonialism" in Palma

You can click on them to go to the responding article

And to closeoff

European tourism prompts locals to declare 'enough is enough' as visitor numbers grow in ABCnet.

"There is a growing backlash over tourism in Europe as the favourite hotspots suffer from chronic overcrowding and locals face rising prices for basic needs such as rent."

European tourism prompts locals to declare 'enough is enough' as visitor numbers grow

(Twitter Corse Tourism)

Just a few thoughts..

The growth paradox: can tourism ever be sustainable?

World Economic forum (aug 2017)

Picture Comparison Mass / Alternative Tourism

(Nompumelelo Mathebula, Univ of Johannesburg)

Picture Types of Tourism

(Cecilia Ryan, Understanding tourism impacts & types of alternative tourism)

Friluftsliv

This blogitem introduces you to the concept of Frilufsliv.

A fundamental understanding of men and nature.

A concept well known in Scandinavian countries, but becoming a trend elsewhere!

Enjoy what I gathered,

enjoy your compassion with and immersion in nature ;-)

Introducing

The following picture is a search on the concept in Google pictures:

Think you get an idea!

"What, then, is it? "

Mountaineering educator Nils Faarlund on Friluftsliv (in Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature and religion):

"“An unselfish I-Thou relationship that tries to come away from the anthropocentrism of a nature-dissonant society,” Faarlund concludes. Inherently, friluftsliv, as Faarlund, Ibsen, and Nansen want to define it, is a fundamentally spiritual belief that simply getting out into nature, enjoying the hike, the climb, the ski, the swim, is an essentially personal religious experience that gives the greatest possible meaning to human life."

Let's explore the concept more in two popular articles

MacsAdventure: 

"Friluftsliv, a word coined by Norwegian poet Henrik Ibsen, literally translating to ‘free air life’ is the word used to broadly describe the connection to nature that is so strong in Norway. This article explores how a respect and love of the outdoors is developed. "

Friluftsliv: a Norwegian Philosophy.

McLendon on Mother's nature network:

How 'friluftsliv' can help you reconnect with nature

"The Norwegian word, coined in 1859, has come to embody Norway's cultural enchantment with nature. It doesn't translate easily to English, but the basic spirit of friluftsliv hides inside all of us."

Sit back and relax

Documentary by Charlotte Workman

"'Friluftsliv' is an ancient Nordic philosophy of outdoor life. It is an engrained philosophy in Norway and Sweden but relatively unknown to the rest of the world. This philosophy embodies the idea that returning to nature, is returning home."

See it on Vimeo, click here. It.'s 11 minutes long.

And finally if you want to go deeper I have some articles and a reference to a book:

Two articles if you want to read more..

Outdoor Recreation and the Nordic Tradition of "Friluftsliv": A Source of Inspiration for a Sustainable Society? by Klas Sandell

"This article starts with a discussion of outdoor life as both a consequence of and a reaction against the industrialized and urbanized society. Thereafter comes a short presentation of the Nordic 2 outdoor tradition of "friluftsliv" (open-air life), including its "allemansrtt" (everyone's right of access to the countryside within certain limits). Finally the complicated issue of interaction between environmental experience and environmental perspective is raised and a preliminary model of the interaction between outdoor life and environmentalism is presented."

Friluftsliv: The Scandinavian Philosophy ofOutdoor Life by Hans Gelter:

Abstract:

This paper explores the roots of the Scandinavian outdoor lifestyle of friluftsliv and its philosophical implication as well as its applications for environmental education. Friluftsliv as a philosophy is deeply rooted in Norway and Sweden but has lately obtained a more a superficial meaning by the commercialization of outdoor activities. The philosophy and biology of friluftsliv is explored showing its importance as a means, in environmental education, to facilitate a true connectedness to the more-thanhuman world. 

Nature First: Outdoor Life the Friluftsliv Way (Bob Henderson, Nils Vikander eds)

Have a look inside this book on GoogleBooks, click here.

And if you like a book review.


Pilgrimage and Place is also on Facebook.If you like you can like the page there.

The Rewilding Movement

Perhaps the subject of this blogitem is an anthropocene subject par excellence ;-)
Want to know more about rewilding? Just read and look on for this quick introduction.

"The short film (3’39) explains Rewilding Europe’s vision and approach to make wild nature a normal part of a modern Europe in the 21^st century. Learn why we believe there is a historic opportunity to shape our natural landscapes of the future. Find out how rewilding can provide new perspectives for rural communities living in Europe’s countryside."

George Monbiot tells us in this Ted presentation on the reintroduction of wolves in the National Park Pick your own language...

See the movie here

And see his manifesto for rewilding the world here.

However, read here a counter article on Popular Science 

"Has The Reintroduction Of Wolves Really Saved Yellowstone?

Recent science suggests that, while important to restoring Yellowstone Park's ecological health, wolves are not the primary solution. Let the fighting commence."

But lets enter the core concept. See John Carey in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA in his 2016 referenced article. (As long as they are allowed to publish scientific material ;-)
You can also download the pdf article there if you like.


Have a look at a pilot project of Rewilding Europe in Spain and Portugal: the case of Western - Iberia

(22:41)

Nice, the idea of forest that's to be feared, in contradiction to the 'view in the UK'!
A view from North-Rhine Westpfalia, wilderness in orderly Germany?
(4:17)

Another nice article is The Call of the Rewild

Ed Gibney in The Humanist 2016
Rewilding as a contra-concept to museum piece preservation of nature.

If you like to browse rewilding movies just click here to enter the world of youtube.

Walk and Horreo

Sleeping in a Parador is perhaps not the place to sleep along the Camino de Santiago for a usual pilgrim.
But a traditional horreo, that's an option for the pilgrim living traditonal values, right?

Architect Nacho Gias from Madrid rebuilded four traditional horreos along the camino into luxurious 2 person cabins. (66$ a night)

By the end of 2016 two more are planned.

Catesby Holmes reports in Conde Nast Traveler

See also the Walk and Horreo site

Rural flight

Perhaps half of all abandoned villages in Spain are in Galicia. As processes of aging, rural flight (& urbanisation) and bad (economic) perspectives continue, this development will increase. Will immigration or tourism have an impact?

I collected some fine articles, a book and a movie on the subject.

So, if interested, go ahead ;-)

Population increase (red) or decrease (blue):

(Source and also population map of Europe on CityMetric here (Jun 2015))

Have a look at this 13:11 documentary on Galician Ghost villages published by Celtico on the situation of the living landscape and on a family started to live in a former abandoned village.

See also this article in NPR (Aug 2015)

In Spain, Entire Villages Are Up For Sale — And They're Going Cheap

or this one in Christian Science Monitor (Aug 2015)

For sale in Spanish 'paradise': entire villages. Cheap.

or this one in Financial Times (Dec 2014)

A Spanish exodus to the cities leaves a desert in its wake
(FT subscription field may popup)

or this pictoral impression of Molina de Aragon, the least-populated place in Europe in MailOnline (Mar 2015)

This is in contrast with research from CheckmyBus (nov 2015) where The Camino de Santiago with place five rates among the top ten of tourist attractions in Spain, with Santiago de Compostela on the sixth place (LaVoxdeGalicia).

More information in

The Depopulation of Rural Spain in the Twentieth Century

by Fernando Collantes and Vicente Pinilla, 2011

(book review here)

In 'Reducing Depopulation in Rural Spain: The Impact of Immigration' the authors (Fernando Collantes, Vicente Pinilla, Luis Antonio Sáez and Javier Silvestre, 2013) discuss research on the impact of immigration that could lead to substantial reduction.

(Here available online)

Immigration and depopulation is also subject of the article 

'Silent blight in a countryside of empty homes and shut shops'

in The Guardian (Aug 2015):

"Young people are leaving rural areas of Europe for the cities at a time when birth rates are at historic lows. As the countryside empties, should rising immigration be seen as a solution, not a problem?"

(Click here to see)

(And for Dutch audience a link to a report from Henk Jan Slomp on depolulation in Spain, specific Matarraña, Teruel (2004))