In her recent Expat Adventures column, Anna Charles captures something we all recognise: the quiet trust that defines life in the Saanenland. From neighbours who carry fainting children home without hesitation to chalets so welcoming that late-night travellers might mistake them for their own, these stories highlight why this region feels different. Safe, in a way that’s hard to quantify but easy to sense.

And yet, even places built on trust are not entirely untouched by change. With global tourism continually growing and occasional headlines elsewhere about opportunistic crime, the question arises: how do we preserve that treasured sense of ease here?

To explore this balance between vigilance and the relaxed rhythm of alpine life, I spoke with James Otigbah, whose work in the region offers a practical perspective on what “feeling safe” really means today. His reflections point out that true security is never static: it evolves with society, technology, and expectations.

But there is also another layer to “safety” worth considering. For some, it is about safeguarding not only our homes but our way of life. Local farmers Yaëlle and Bastien Rossier, profiled in this issue, cultivate their Potag’Oex farm in Les Moulins with a conviction that sustainability itself is a form of security.

By tending rare heirloom vegetables, freerange hens, and bees, they show that food resilience and biodiversity are as vital to our future as locks on a door.

Further a field, Pays-d'En haut based photographer Griet van Malderen, featured in Behind the Lens, approaches safety from a global perspective. Her camera has taken her close to lions on African beaches and elephants moving silently through forests, but what drives her work is not adventure alone. It is urgency. Her mission is to give endangered species a voice, to safeguard them through visibility. In her case, photography becomes both an artistic act and a shield.

All three; the security professional, the small-scale farmers, and the conservation photographer, underline that safety is not a single concept. It is layered: local and global, immediate and long-term, practical and visionary. Perhaps that is why Saanenland still feels secure. Not because danger does not exist in the world, but because here people continue to invest in trust, vigilance, and resilience in ways both quiet and profound.

Jeanette Wichmann
Editor in Chief