ONCE frontiers were changed by armies. Now the job is done by global warming. Italy and Switzerland are preparing to make—or rather to recognise—alterations to the border that runs through the Monte Rosa massif of the Alps. Despite what romantically minded locals may say, the name of the massif has nothing to with the pink blush its peaks acquire at sunset. It comes from a dialect word meaning glacier.
The massif has nine glaciers. In several places the line between the two countries is set at the watershed. Because of global warming, the glaciers have shrunk, so the watershed has shifted, “in some places by as much as ten metres”, says General Carlo Colella of Italy’s Military Geographic Institute in Florence. In January, after four years of work by the general and his staff, Silvio Berlusconi’s cabinet approved a change in the frontier.
The line was first drawn in 1861 and enshrined in a convention 80 years later. The biggest change since came in the 1970s, when a stream that marked the border was diverted to allow construction of the Lugano-Como motorway. The two countries agreed a compensatory exchange of territory. The next Italian-Swiss agreement will be the second of three made necessary by the shrinking Alpine glaciers. Italy has already concluded a deal with Austria and plans to make another with France.
Recognising that global warming will make any line based on the watershed of a glacier temporary, the understanding with Austria has for the first time introduced the concept of a movable border. Experts from both sides will be empowered to alter it at regular intervals. Until, presumably, the glaciers disappear altogether.
http://www.economist.com/node/13496212
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