^Computer rendering of Trojena ski resort
We published an article yesterday detailing the absurd decision by The Olympic Council of Asia to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games in the not-yet-built mountain resort of Trojena, Saudi Arabia.
Trojena is set to be a mountain/man-made lake destination for wealthy vacationerss as part of Saudi Arabia’s massive NEOM city. You can click here to read more about NEOM and Trojena.
The Saudi government is sponsoring the construction of NEOM using the Saudi Public Investment Fund, essentially a bottomless slush fund, to improve the country’s global perception.
^Computer rendering of Trojena
Saudi Arabia has made their fortune on exporting crude oil, but they’re claiming that NEOM will be fueled by renewable energy sources.
Trojena will be built in a mountainous region of Saudi Arabia that is generally cooler than the rest of the country, but sees minimal annual snowfall.
It is expected that all of Trojena’s ski trails will rely solely on man-made snow.
Greenpeace, a global political action group that focuses on protecting the earth, has slammed The Olympic Council of Asia and NEOM/Trojena itself.
Ahmed El Droubi, regional campaigns manager for Greenpeace, has cast doubts on the Saudi’s claim that the resort will be environmentally responsible:
“You’re changing a natural ecosystem which can have compounding impacts,”
“If you change something in one place, it may change something else in another place, and so on, and it can have impacts on neighbouring ecosystems.”
“I don’t even know if we have the capacity to predict and model such impacts, and it is a very dangerous thing to do, to massively alter ecosystems in this manner.”
NEOM officials claim that Trojena will actually benefit the local ecosystem, and that the resort will be carbon-neutral.
Building a massive “ski resort” to host a large competition such as the Asian Winter Games in the middle of the desert is a head-scratcher.
Will Saudi Arabia be able to pull this off? We’ll have to wait and see.