Sustainable tourism: What are the goals of establishing the Ajloun cable car in Jordan? – . .

Some preliminary studies on tourism in Jordan indicated that the number of ecotourism pioneers could increase in the Ajloun Mountains region thanks to several environmentally friendly development projects, such as the cable car station, within five years.

There was a clear interest in ecotourism in Jordan due to the pressures to preserve and develop the natural environment. The first ecological environment in Jordan was established in 1993 in the Dana Nature Reserve located in southern Jordan.

The Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature in Jordan currently supervises ten nature reserves, including the Ajloun Reserve, through which the cable car route indirectly passes.

It is worth noting that Jordan was one of the countries that responded to the declaration of the International Year of Ecotourism in 2002, to consider ecotourism practices when planning tourist destinations to improve their contribution to local economic development and environmental conservation.

The Director General of Development Zones in Jordan, who is responsible for the cable car station project in Jordan, engineer Arwa Al-Hayari, says: “The cable car project is a development tourism project that aims to develop and encourage tourism projects in an integrated manner in Ajloun Governorate.”

Engineer Arwa adds that the goal of the cable car station project is to seek to create eco-tourism projects that preserve the natural environments and their habitats in the “unique” forests of Ajloun and build on their environmental advantages in accordance with international best practices.

Local authorities in Jordan encourage residents, as well as tourists, to practice hiking and cycling during their visit to the Ajloun Mountains, and hope that electric bicycles and cable cars will be part of the sustainable environmental and economic solution in the region.

The cable cars are very popular among tourists and residents in the city of Ajloun, and are considered environmentally friendly, because the cable cars themselves do not have a motor and are lifted by an electric crane.

The head of the Federation of Environmental Associations in Jordan, Omar Al-Shoushan, says: “The cable car project is an environmentally friendly, low-emission project and is based on ecosystem services, as the Ajloun forests provide the main advantage for eco-tourism.”

Al-Shoushan adds that the cable car route took into account the environmental conditions required by Environmental Protection Law No. 6 of 2017, and there is no impact on wildlife in the natural reserve, and studies were carried out to avoid any potential environmental damage.

Some environmental experts in Jordan believe that the cable car route does not directly cross the natural reserve, which contributes to reducing human activity, so that tourists can enjoy the natural scenery without there being direct harm to the forests, especially from the plastic waste that is thrown into the forests due to “random hiking.” .

Some environmental experts also point out that the Ajloun cable car project could enhance the importance of forests to local communities as “attracting green investments and providing job opportunities,” and this constitutes an element of community protection for forests as they have become a source of economic income.

The cable car project plays a role in protecting forests “indirectly by preserving the natural pattern” which is the basis of the project, in addition to increasing the number of tourists to enjoy the beauty of the region.

Although there are few cable car accidents in the world, when they do occur, they claim dozens of lives and cause huge material losses. Therefore, preventive and precautionary steps are put in place before and after starting to operate any cable car station to take into account safety and protection conditions.

Engineer Arwa Al-Hayari says in this regard: “The safety procedures for the cable car are represented by international engineering specifications and their high quality, according to the manufacturer and world leader in the cable car industry, which is the Austrian company Doppelmeier, as well as continuous and regular maintenance within pre-scheduled time programs.”

She adds that the crew is qualified and trained to operate the cable car station and is equipped to deal with any emergency in accordance with emergency plans and safety standards for the cable car system in force globally.

Cable car accidents – despite their infrequency – occur quickly and dramatically, which poses a dilemma for the crews working to operate any cable car station to try to avoid them. In most cases, the causes of these accidents are external, meaning they have no relation to the operational systems of the cable car station.

Among the most prominent cable car accidents that occurred in the world during the past and current century:

A cable car collapsed near the Italian city of Merano in the Dolomiti Mountains, killing five people in 1970.

– The Peten-Bettmeralp cable car in Switzerland crashed, killing 13 people, in 1972.

– A collision between two cabins during the operation of the Dusalp cable car in France, killing nine cable car operators in 1972.

– A cable car cabin collapsed in the Italian city of Cavalese due to a break in the conveyor wire, killing 42 people in 1979.

– Two cabins collided in the Aosta Valley cable car in Italy, killing 11 people in 1983.

The transmission line of the Cavalese cable car station in the Italian Dolomiti Mountains was cut, killing 20 people in 1998.

– A cable car cabin crashed in the French province of Hautes-Alpes, killing 20 people in 1999.

– A cable car station near Sölden in the Austrian Tyrol region crashed, killing nine people in 2005.

– A cable car cabin collapsed in the tourist resort of Stresa in the Italian province of Piedmont, killing 14 people in 2021.