The first meeting of the Compliance Committee of the Alpine Convention under Austrian Presidency on 9 and 10 March 2017 was focused on the in depth review of the subject „Economical use of soil“. Building on the lessons learnt during the first in depth review the Committee had carried out on the subject of tourism, experts in the fields of spatial planning and soil conservation were invited at an early state of the procedure. This made easier to identify the priority topics to be examined and to develop a model set of questions to be addressed to the Contracting Parties. The meeting, organized by Switzerland, took place at the headquarters of the regional administration of the canton St. Gallen. It included an excursion, which displayed some of the challenges the realization of economical use of soil is facing, particularly in cross border areas like the Rhine Valley.
