Glacier interpretation centre in climate change education : objectives of local stake holders and strategy of scientific mediation

• Main Authors: Nesur, Kalpana, Salim, Emmanuel, Girault, Camille, Ravanel, Ludovic
• Other Authors: Environnements, Dynamiques et Territoires de Montagne (EDYTEM), Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB Université de Savoie Université de Chambéry )-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2021
• Subjects: [SHS.GEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Geography; Canada; New Zealand; glacier*
• Online Access: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03453482

International audience Climate change (CC) is a current and global phenomenon that clearly affects mountain areas, where almost all of the world’s glaciers are retreating synchronously, since the 1950s (IPCC, 2021). In this context, tourist activities related to glaciers are particularly impacted; this is the case, for example, of the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers in New Zealand (Stewart et al., 2016), of the Mer de Glace in France (Salim & Ravanel, 2020) or of the Athabasca Glacier in Canada (Weber et al., 2019). Relative to this evolution, during these last two decades, we observe a new form of tourism, related to the scientific value of glaciers (Salim et al., 2021). One of these forms of tourism consists in developing glacierinterpretation centres (GICs), tools for scientific mediation, dealing with glacier dynamics and glaciers as sensitive natural heritage (Clivaz & Savioz, 2020). However, very few studies have been conducted in this field and even less in terms of origin of these projects, their objectives, local stake holders, etc. Glacier retreat is one of the tangible and visible witnesses of CC (Gardent et al., 2014). Nevertheless, how local stake holders have mobilised for the creation of these GICs? How GICs can become a tool for raising awareness on CC with the present glacier retreat as a marker ? What are the initial objectives of their creation ? How the message is presented ? In order to answer these questions, 3 GICs have been studied according to their caracteristics, their accessibility and proximity of sites : Espace Glacialis (Champagny en Vanoise, France), Glaciorium (Montenvers - Mer de Glace, France) and World Nature Forum (Naters, Switzerland) . The study is based on qualitative data: 15 interviews with local stakeholders (semi-structured interviews) to better understand the origin of the GIC projects and synergy between local actors.The study shows that the concerned GICs aims to demonstrate present dynamics of their local glaciers (natural heritage) through proper scientific ...