Blatten: What Price For Preserving Swiss Mountain Life?

(MENAFN- Swissinfo) There has been a huge outpouring of solidarity in Switzerland for the people of Blatten. Yet debate around the cost of protecting mountain villages has also arisen – tactlessly fast. Is the divide between the Alpine regions and the lowlands growing? This content was published on June 11, 2025 - 09:00 10 minutes

I work as editor and correspondent at the Federal Palace. I report on Swiss politics for the Swiss Abroad and manage our political talk show Let's Talk. I started in local journalism in the early nineties and have worked in many journalistic fields, held management positions and covered a range of topics. I joined SWI swissinfo in 2017.

• More from this auth
• German Departme

• Deutsch de Blatten: Was darf ein Schweizer Bergdorf kosten? Original Read more: Blatten: Was darf ein Schweizer Bergdorf kosten
• Français fr Blatten: combien vaut un village de montagne suisse? Read more: Blatten: combien vaut un village de montagne suisse
• Italiano it Blatten, quanto può costare un villaggio alpino svizzero? Read more: Blatten, quanto può costare un villaggio alpino svizzero?
• Русский ru Сколько можно заплатить за швейцарскую горную деревню? Read more: Сколько можно заплатить за швейцарскую горную деревню

The debris had hardly settled in the devastated village of Blatten when voices in the heart of urban Switzerland could be heard asking:“What is life in the Alps worth to us as a society? Whatever it takes?”

'Who will relocate?'

It was a breach of taboo: an editorial in the NZZ am SonntagExternal link openly called into question Swiss solidarity between mountainous areas and the lowlands. From an office in downtown Zurich, the newspaper's editor-in-chief suggested that people that should start moving away from mountain villages.“The less there is, the less that can be destroyed. Who will relocate?” he wrote.

Meanwhile, in the Lötschental valley in canton Valais, the mayor promised that“we will rebuild all our homes”.

That the debate arose so quickly shows how much it had already been brewing. It also drives home just how pressing the question is in an Alpine country whose mountains are starting to crumble under the effects of climate change.

The call from Zurich did not go down well with the rest of the country, however. The day it was published, the editorial sparked widespread criticism for“lacking in respect.”

The following Monday, Anna Giacometti, a centre-right Radical-Liberal parliamentarian from canton Graubünden, was at the Federal Palace in Bern. The journey from her home in the Bregaglia valley to the parliament building takes five hours. It is the longest commute of any Swiss member of parliament.

'Huge solidarity'

“It's not every day that a member of the federal government comes to a mountain valley,” Giacometti says, remembering back to 2017 when she was mayor of Bregaglia, a municipality comprising a dozen villages, including Bondo.

Then, too, the mountain struck with a force that no one could have imagined. Eight hikers lost their lives. The rockfall sent mud, rocks and dirt flooding into Bondo, devastating parts of the village.

Anna Giacometti, a centre-right Radical-Liberal parliamentarian from canton Graubünden, in 2017. Keystone / Gian Ehrenzeller

Today, Giacometti remembers the“huge outpouring of solidarity in Switzerland”.“It was such a comfort,” she says.

The day after the landslide, then Swiss president Doris Leuthard arrived by helicopter. With tears in her eyes, she hugged Giacometti. A photo of this moment adorns Giacometti's wall at home.

'We'll manage'

They flew over the debris-covered Bondasca valley together – the president of the federal government, the mayor of Bondo and the president of canton Graubünden. Giacometti looked down with shock at the devastated village.

A huge mudslide hit the village Bondo in south Switzerland, on August 23, 2017. Keystone / Giancarlo Cattaneo

“Who will pay for all this?” she asked. The answer came from the president of the cantonal government.“Don't think about that right now. We'll manage.”

Whatever it takes. Bondo was eight years ago, in August 2017. The village has now been rebuilt. A total of CHF53 million francs ($64 million) was spent on protective structures – shoring up bridges, the main road, a roundabout.

Bondo in March 2025: new bridges and protection zones were built at a cost of CHF53 million. Keystone / Gian Ehrenzeller

“Is all this proportionate for 200 inhabitants?” the Tages-AnzeigerExternal link newspaper asked in late May. Giacometti says:“These are questions from people who live in the lowlands or in a city. In Zurich, a bicycle underpass also costs CHF40 million.”

In Switzerland, a simple principle determines what is proportionate for protective structures: each franc invested must prevent one franc of potential damage.

The money always came from the valley

When prosperity came to Switzerland, it first arrived in the cities. Life in the countryside was modest; and in the mountains it was poor, tough and often very precarious.

Only with tourism in the 19th century did money start trickling into the mountain villages. And with the advent of electrification, some communities were able to cash in on their water power .

But the bulk of the development works – the infrastructure for schools, roads and hospitals – were an act of solidarity right from the start. The money came from the valley.

Since the founding of the federal state in 1848, Switzerland has pumped funds into the mountain cantons, in a process known as vertical financial equalisation.

With the increasing prosperity of the post-Second World War economic miracle, the country laid the foundations for a“solidarity transfer” between the rich and poorer cantons. This was enshrined in the Swiss constitution in 1959.

More More Why do Swiss mountains collapse? It's complicated

This content was published on May 23, 2025 Small landslides are on the increase in the Swiss Alps owing to climate change. But the link with global warming is less obvious for large natural disasters.

Read more: Why do Swiss mountains collapse? It's complicate

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