Mountain Ecosystems & Sustainable Land Use Traditions

by Wolfgang HOLZNER, Gerhard WEISS, Hartmut GOSSOW (Austria)

In the Austrian Eastern Alps, a network of case study regions is investigated as a multidisciplinary approach toward pasturing influences and impacts on mountain ecosystems´ diversity, carrying capacity, and sustainability. One of these case study sites, the Hochschneeberg ("High-Snow-Mountain") will become the topic of one of several team-teaching and workshop excursions during this Intensive Programme (5th/6th Sept.).

As a preparatory background information, some of the more important aspects are given as an introductory summary, supplemented by a few comments in relation to mountain forests & forestry:

• Mountain agriculture and pasturing are most important not only for the status quo of the respective (cultural) landscape, but also for the sustainability of its productivity and biodiversity. Not only "the alpine landscape", but also sensitive and important floral and faunal elements (e.g. edelweiss, alpine marmot) are dependent on the further existence of mountain land use practices (agricultural crop-breeding and pasturing). A pure landscape preservation without land use appears, because of economical, ecological, or reasons of landscape aesthetics, not possible sustainably.
• At present, whole regions but also single acreages (like single "Almen" = local pasturing grounds) are often developing in the direction of two extreme alternatives: Abandoning any concrete further usage for the sake of nature conservation ("back to wilderness") - or, still more intensified production on optimum sites ("Gunstlagen") by crowded pasturing, reforestation, or tourism. The result usually is, or will become, something like a "nature protection wilderness" on one side, and on the other one overused landscapes as agrarian/ tourism/ forestry/ industrial "production landscapes" - whereas the "cultural landscapes" are vanishing, and insofar also the mountainous recreation landscapes where human well-being (between wilderness and over-civilization) is usually realized best.
• These statements are confirmed by a series of investigations and data within the above-mentioned study network. That also means that existence of and support for mountain peasants is to be assessed as most necessary in order to sustain mountain cultural landscapes at all: The ideas and demands of landscape aestetics and nature protectionists should become secondary compared to this priority! Local landscape and biodiversity of "nature" are to be seen more as by-products, and may look like in future also different from those today. The only criterium for steering measurements should be the principle of ecological and economical sustainabiliy ("wise use").
• The present modus of supportive measures represents a more transitional solution. The long term goal should be economic self-reliance of alpine regions, or of the Alps as a whole: That means, at least a partial uncoupling from global economic trends and the general market situation (e.g. via regionalisation initiatives, direct marketing of products, alternative tourism etc.). Tourism may still be seen as an important supporting leg, but a quite unsteady one.
• Probably the most valuable character of mountain landscapes is not based on ecology or economy, but on the preservation of a land use type and culture which allows it to exist under limiting conditions in a sustainable way. And even "sustainability" is probably not the most appropriate term because it should be more an operational term like the opening of developmental possibilities. Tradition in this context is seen more as the transfer of fire than the adoration of the ash".
• If or how far for instance, the NATURA 2000 instrument and the Helsinki Process of the EU may fit to these suggestions, shall be discussed to some extent in the workshop. Part of the Helsinki Process are also socio-economic issues; and also NATURA 2000 demands, like national parks or wilderness areas (IUCN cat. II and I), own management plans which mean to an high extent "people management" as well as regulatory substitutes for the traditional trophy hunting of ungulate game species, not to forget recreation landscapes.
• Pasturing is not only opening up the landscape and increasing the amount of grazable grounds (on the cost of forested land), but via such practices it is also improving mountain landscapes as wildlife habitats for a lot of game and non-game species. In connection with abandoned pasturing/ high altitude reforestation, some of the alpine species (plants and animals) are decreasing or vanishing; others may thrive and become overabundant, at least for forestry interests in production as well as in protection forests (cf. game and livestock damages by selective browsing, debarking, trampling impacts). But, of course, climate change may likewise influence those developments.
• The visited study site is exceptional also insofar as several mountain massifs in the eastern-most Alps are reserved and protected as drinking-water source areas for the Viennese demands with a transportation technology from the source areas to the Vienna sink partly by aqueducts, partly by pipeline, over 100 km or more. Therefore, you will find here forestry and landscape management practices more different from forestry and land use elsewhere (details during the workshop-excursion).

Schneeberg ("Snow Mountain") - Excursion Programme

The Schneeberg is the easternmost summit of the Alps towering above 2.000ms. The altitudes from 17000 to 1900 are dominated by an alpine pastoral landscape, formed by a mode of land utilisation which is many thousand years old. We will study this area for two days. It will serve as an example for the changes taking place in the European mountain landscapes of today, of what we will loose if we are not aware, but also as an example for the complicated interconnections between forestry, agriculture, hunting, recreation & tourism and nature conversation. We will try to analyse and understand the whole as a complex (eco)system and get acquainted with a (computerised) methodical approach to tackle some of the urgent problems of the area. In a kind of role-playing, the students will learn to understand the situation of the different stakeholders in the system, but they will also come into contact with some of the real actors in the system (forester, hunter, herdsman, farmer, landlord). Besides that there will be possibility for those interested to study the flora and vegetation, observe the game (chamois), and abiotic environmental factors, animals and human impact.

The excursion-workshop programme will take two days (5/6 Sept), access by bus and rack-railway, descent by either walking or; overnight stay in a simple alpine hut. On the mountain no lectures or papers are presented (introduction lecture on 4th Sept) - the students are the main players here and will also largely decide about the programme.