🌊 Ensuring balance in change: a look back at CIPEL's Annual Plenary Session on December 6, 2024

"Nothing is permanent, except change."

These words of Heraclitus take on their full meaning this year for CIPEL and Lake Geneva, both of which are undergoing major transformations.

🔎 Lake Geneva, a symbol of balance and resilience, reveals signs of change:

• Temperatures: second warmer year after 2022
• Climate and ecosystem dynamics: 12 years without mixing, deep waters lacking oxygen, a fragile food chain. Is Lake Geneva becoming meromictic, i.e. a lake whose water layers no longer mix?
• Biodiversity under pressure: the threat of quagga mussels and fragile ecosystems? A resolution was adopted to assess the feasibility of introducing compulsory declaration and control of boat cleaning when changing bodies of water, in order to limit the risk of invasion and biological dispersal of invasive exotic species.
• Resilience in the face of extremes: the historic storms and floods of 2024 remind us of the urgent need to protect this unique natural heritage.

🧪 For 2025, CIPEL is planning a vast study of the lake's sediments, a veritable natural archive, to better retrace its history and analyze the current state of its ecosystem, in order to guide future decisions.

📊 Our scientific report is being transformed into a dynamic tool, accessible not only to researchers, but also to decision-makers, managers and citizens.

🤝 This year was also one of openness: strengthening partnerships and federating players in the Lake Geneva region remains at the heart of our mission.

Through these challenges and transitions, one thing remains certain: in change, we find inspiration and balance. Thank you all for your continued commitment to Lake Geneva!

👉 To find out more, we are delighted to share with you our Activity Report 2024which provides an overview of CIPEL's actions over the past year, and contains an illustrated summary of the state of health of Lake Geneva.