Introduction

What are the Alps?

The Alps are the highest and most extensive mountain system in Europe. They comprise a total area of 240 000 km2, extend to a length of 1000 km, and are between 130 and 250 km wide. Many summits rise above 4 000 m (the highest of which is Mont Blanc at 4 807 m), while most mountain groups in the Alps exceed 3 000 m and have snow- and ice-capped peaks. Only in the eastern part of the eastern Alps (somewhat east of the line connecting Linz and Klagenfurt) is their elevation less pronounced, giving them the character of mountains of moderate height.

Typical of folded mountains of the Tertiary period, the Alps are composed of greatly extended parallel mountain chains. In the western part of the western Alps, between the Mediterranean and Lake Geneva, these chains are curved, while in the rest of the Alps they are almost straight, running from east to west. They include very large intermontane valleys and basins in numerous places (the largest of which is the Klagenfurt Basin in Austria), which are nonetheless considered part of the Alps for natural and cultural reasons. When we speak of "the Alps", we basically mean not only high mountains per se but the entire mountain region, including deep valley floors and hill regions.

It is not difficult to distinguish the Alps, since they rise steeply above the surrounding lowlands practically everywhere. Only where they merge with the Apennines and the Dinaric Alps is there any difficulty in making a distinction. In earlier times, the borders of the Alps were determined according to geological and geomorphological features. But a new criterion has been adopted since the Second World War. In all Alpine countries so-called mountain regions have been designated by law in conjunction with specific mountain policies. These regions are distinguished on the basis of natural (for the most part topographical) and socio-economic criteria. The result is a new socio-economic definition of the Alpine area which is becoming increasingly important. This chapter is based on this new definition of the Alps.

What do mountains mean to people?

The Alps are among the earliest-settled regions of Europe and have never played a solitary "backwoods" role. But the image of the Alps in the mind of the European public has always been and continues to be formed by European cities. The viewpoint of those who live in the mountains contributes almost nothing to this image.

Three different images of the Alps have predominated throughout European history:

a) The Alps as "montes horribiles"

This image of mountains as frightening was shaped by the first highly advanced European cultures, the Greeks and Romans, and established in Roman literature around the time of the birth of Christ. It continued to influence the European view of the Alps until well into the 18th century. Scholars, traders, pilgrims and travellers who traversed the Alps quoted portions of Roman writings on the mountains verbatim.

This image characterized the Alps as a region hostile to man and a source of fear and terror. Should one be forced to cross them, the mountains were to be abandoned as quickly as possible thereafter. That such a hostile region was actually inhabited by human beings was perceived only peripherally; this fact remained inexplicable and was of no interest. The Alps formed the northern border of Mediterranean Europe; behind them began the unknown regions of "barbarian" Europe in which there was little interest. For central and northern Europe, on the other hand, the Alps represented the final barrier to be surmounted before reaching the "promised land" which was the "cradle of European civilization". Thus the motivation to make the dangerous crossing over the Alps was greater in the north than in the south.

b) The Alps as an idyllic world

This was a completely new image which arose during the age of European industrialization and was first developed by poets, writers and painters (the most important of whom was Jean-Jacques Rousseau) before it was widely popularized. Its origins were already apparent in the 16th and 17th centuries, but it only became widespread around 1780. This occurred first in England, the birthplace of industrialism. This view of the Alps enjoyed its first great vogue during the age of Romanticism and achieved a second peak of popularity during the so-called Belle Epoque (1880-1914), when Alpine tourism was first beginning to flourish. This image has continued
to influence the European perception of the
Alps virtually to the present day and provided a spiritual background for mass tourism in the Alps after 1950.

Implicit in this image is a view of the Alps as a paradise which existed prior to the Fall of man–a world in which there was still complete harmony between man and nature and in which man partook of nature without destroying or exploiting it. It portrayed Alpine residents as "noble savages": ideal, virtuous human beings living in free, pristine democratic conditions. Somewhat later, non-European cultures (North American Indians and South Sea islanders) were also described in terms of this image.

Although the idyllic image owes something to certain traditions in Graeco-Roman culture, European industrialization was fundamental in shaping it. For while nature was being carelessly exploited and destroyed by industrial processes of production on the one hand, there arose on the other hand a need to idealize nature and derive aesthetic enjoyment from the beauty of the natural landscape.

c) The Alps as a region of natural disasters and major environmental destruction

This is the most recent image of the Alps. It has been developing gradually since the end of the 1970s, when it was first recognized in Europe that Alpine environmental problems were continuing to grow in scale. This new image has been primarily shaped by journalists in the mass media (newspapers, magazines and television) who tend to make sweeping judgements in their indictments of environmental destruction. The picture of the Alps as a "disaster region" therefore becomes more extreme the further away one is from the mountains.

Ecological problems relating to ski slopes, the impacts of mass tourism (oversettlement, air pollution), traffic and forest decline form the basis of this image. The main focus is characteristically on the problems of overdeveloped Alpine regions while the problems of remote, economically weak regions in the Alps are not recognized at all. In this perspective the Alps are seen as a unique, disaster-prone region in which there is such a marked increase in avalanches, floods, mud flows and landslides resulting from human destruction of the environment that the survival of every individual is threatened.

These three images of the Alps were developed in European urban centres. Although partially accurate, they also contain clichés or present a distorted picture which does not correspond to reality. The Alps are a region of striking diversity and great internal variety. Nature and culture, indigenous economic structure and the influence of outside capital, environmental protection and environmental destruction, and local tradition and the infiltration of post-modern values all interact and penetrate in so many ways that simple, all-inclusive statements are inadequate to describe the situation. n

Alpine ecology has been shaped by two different forces. One is parent rock and the weathering and landscape forms associated with it. The other is climate (precipitation and temperature). The flora and plant associations of the Alps are influenced by the specific interplay between these two forces.

Geology and geomorphology

Alpine geology can be sketched in terms of the following typical features:

1) The highest, most centrally located portion of the Alps (the major range or crest) consists of extremely hard rock (crystalline rock, gneiss and granite) which weathers slowly and produces steep formations, although vertical walls are rare. (Land use is difficult owing to slow soil formation and great elevation.)

2) To the north and to the south (and in the western part of the western Alps, to the west and east) there are areas of relatively soft rock (sedimentary rock such as calcareous schist) which weathers rather quickly and produces smooth formations. These areas have already been greatly worn down. The major intermontane longitudinal valleys are located here and rivers such as the Rhone, the Rhine, the Inn and the Salzach have made deep incisions, so the average height of the summits is relatively low. (Land use conditions are very favourable.)

3) Further out towards the exterior we find northern and southern Alpine limestone everywhere except within the interior arc of the Alps between the Lago Maggiore and the Ligurian Apennines. This limestone weathers slowly and water frequently drains underground. Large vertical rock walls and extended arid high plateaus are typical of this region. (Land use conditions are hostile.)

4) The entire exterior zone of the Alps is composed of soft sedimentary "flysch" which weathers quickly and produces soft formations. This zone is rather narrow, however. (Land use conditions are very favourable.)

There are many exceptions which modify this geological and geomorphological pattern, including formations in the western Alps which are substantially more complicated than those in the eastern Alps. Alpine geology is characterized by a marked confinement of formations within small areas, the result of highly complicated processes of folding and overthrust.

Alpine relief was heavily altered by the four major Ice Ages. Valleys became deeper and wider, many low and accessible mountain passes were created, numerous terraces (erosional surfaces) were created on valley sides, and Ice Age glaciers deposited morainal material in many places, which greatly improved the process of soil formation. As a result of the Ice Ages, the conditions of land use and settlement in the Alps were made much more hospitable.

Climate

Because of their size and their location in a double border area between the temperate latitudes and the Mediterranean subtropics, and between oceanic and continental Europe, the Alps exhibit a great range of climatic conditions. Virtually every Alpine valley has a different local climate. There are no clear boundaries, only broad, gradual transitions. This makes it convenient to describe the variety of Alpine climates in terms of "geographischer Formenwandel" (geographic change), a concept developed by Hermann Lautensach (1952):

Hypsometric change As elevation increases, the average temperature drops, the annual growing season becomes shorter, and there is greater precipitation. Precipitation increasingly takes the form of snow at higher and higher altitudes. At the same time, sunlight is more intense and small-scale differences in temperature between sunny and shaded areas become greater because the atmosphere becomes thinner. This is the most basic form of change which has an influence everywhere in the Alps and is responsible for less and less hospitable conditions for vegetation and land use at higher and higher altitudes above sea level. There is just one exception to this pattern. Since the valley floors in intermontane basins and longitudinal valleys are in the shade of neighbouring mountains for most of the day, the boundary layer seldom warms up; instead, it remains cool, producing a pool of cold air and temperature inversion. The valley floors are thus climatically disadvantaged even though they are at very low altitudes.

Peripheral-central change: The Alps are a high mountain system in the path of prevailing westerly winds. They force advancing moist air masses from the Atlantic to rise and produce rain. As a result, the exterior zones of the Alps have heavy rainfall. A combination of reduced sunshine and heavy precipitation means that the upper limit for vegetation is at a low elevation. The climate of the inner Alps, however, is completely different. Clouds have already dissolved and discharged rain so there is a great deal of sun with very little precipitation. Whereas oceanic influences (temperate and humid) prevail in the climate of exterior Alpine zones, a distinctly continental climate (dry with great variations in temperature between summer and winter, day and night, and sunny and shaded areas) is found in the inner Alps. The major longitudinal valleys of this region, known as the "intermontane dry zones", are thus much more desirable climatically than the exterior zones.

Change from west to east: Since the Alps extend for over 800 km from west to east, they are subject to climatic changes in Europe ranging gradually from the moist oceanic climate in the west to the dry continental climate in the east. Because of the influence of the Mediterranean Sea, a continental climate first prevails in the eastern part of the eastern Alps, somewhat east of a line between Linz and Ljubljana. Since altitudes in this region are not great and the Alps take on the character of mountains of moderate height, climatic disadvantages (aridity and great variations in temperature with extremely low temperatures in winter) are not extreme. Change from west to east is the mildest form of change in the Alps.

These four forms of change can be summarized in terms of typical patterns. In accordance with the general rule that climatic conditions for vegetation and land use become worse as altitude increases, the intermontane dry zones have by far the most favourable conditions despite their greater altitudes, while valleys on the southern side of the Alps offer better conditions than valleys on the northern side at the same altitude, just as slopes exposed to the south have a distinct advantage over slopes exposed to the north at the same altitude. But these climatic regularities are altered by the irregular shape of the Alps. Summits are higher in the western Alps than in the eastern Alps because rock formations there are more compact. Since intermontane dry zones can only form where mountain chains are very high, they are found primarily in the western Alps, which are thus climatically preferable to the eastern Alps.

Alpine vegetation

Vegetation in the Alps is a product of the interplay between geology, geomorphology and climate. It can be roughly categorized as follows for each region of the Alps.

The intermontane dry zones, with very little precipitation and very distinct continental climatic conditions, have very high upper limits of vegetation (the tree line is between 2 200 and 2 400 m).

The southern zone, with Mediterranean influences including high temperatures, a great deal of precipitation in spring and autumn, and dry summers, has high upper limits of vegetation (the tree line is between 1 800 and 2 200 m).

The northern zone, with the central European climatic influences of low temperatures and high amounts of precipitation throughout the year, has low upper limits of vegetation (the tree line is between 1 600 and 2 000 m).

The eastern part of the eastern Alps, where the continental climate is responsible for little precipitation, great variations in temperature and very cold winters, has very low upper limits of vegetation (the tree line is between 1 500 and 1 900 m).

In relation to the rest of Europe, the Alps are neither a favourable nor an unfavourable region. The intermontane dry zones and the Mediterranean southern zone are among Europe’s favourable regions and to some extent have climatic and geographic conditions more beneficial to vegetation than the neighbouring lowlands. But the northern zone, with its central European climate, and the continental eastern part of the eastern Alps are unfavourable regions by European standards.

Basic features of Alpine ecosystems

a) The interaction between highly complex geology and the four forms of climatic change discussed above has resulted in small-scale ecological differentiation. Every valley in the Alps exhibits fundamentally different natural conditions and can be compared with neighbouring valleys only in very limited ways. This means that all general statements about Alpine ecosystems are questionable because there will always be exceptions. The practical significance of scientific pronouncements is thereby limited, since it is almost impossible completely to comprehend the diversity of the Alpine environment.

b) Owing to sharp relief, heavy precipitation, low temperatures and short growing periods, all natural processes in the Alps are different from natural processes in lowland areas. Avalanches, mud flows, floods, erosion, landslides, etc., are natural processes in the Alpine environment whose highly abrupt character is often evident. It is characteristic of such processes that nothing at all happens for extended periods (while masses of snow accumulate or streams are blocked by fallen trees or glacial ice); then, a sudden eruption will occur in the form of a highly destructive event. The abruptness of these natural events represents a constant threat to land use in the Alps. This threat can be neither accurately assessed nor completely overcome because of the complex factors at work.n

Any view of natural resources in the Alps must take account of man. Alpine resources are shaped by man’s use of them and his interest in them. Human use of Alpine resources is based on two assumptions. One is that such use is convenient (easy access from the outside as well as from within the Alps): the changes in Alpine relief affected by the Ice Ages play an important role here. The second assumption is that the abruptness of natural processes does not produce destructive effects. This in turn is based on the assumption of experience and a certain ability to deal with nature. Provided that these conditions exist, Alpine natural resources may be described as follows.

Wildlife: In Paleolithic times, wildlife was the most important natural resource in the Alps because many animals were hunted. The variety of Alpine animal species and breeds in existence today still represents an important Alpine natural resource. Many such species which have died out elsewhere in Europe have continued to survive in this environment.

Forests: Even though forests have been substantially reduced as the result of human intervention, they remain a very important resource in the Alps. They are a major source of wood (for dwellings, fences, tools, firewood and charcoal) and other forest products such as berries, mushrooms and truffles. Finally, but by no means of negligible importance, some forest ecosystems are also used as grazing ground. Forests were very important to both Alpine and non-Alpine populations when societies were based on farming. Their economic importance declined with the coming of industrialization because it became too costly to make use of them. However, in the latter part of the 20th century, forests have become newly important as sources of renewable energy. Their functions in providing protection (given the increasingly intensive use of valley floors) and serving as recreational areas are also increasing in importance.

Pastures: Alpine pastures above the tree line are one of the most important natural resources in the Alps. They were used very early in human history and are still of importance today. Even though their yield is not great in quantitative terms because of short growing periods, these areas are nonetheless of great value (as a source of easily digestible fodder which helps keep livestock healthy and raises their resistance to diseases).

Mineral resources: Geological processes in the Alps produced great intermixing of rock. There are no major mineral deposits, but there are many small deposits of limited economic significance. Only three minerals produced in the Alps, copper, gold and salt, were of significance in Europe for any length of time. Copper was mined primarily during the Bronze Age (1800 BC to 800 BC) since Europe had very few copper deposits. Accordingly, deposits of copper in the Alps were very important despite their small size and disadvantageous locations (frequently at altitudes between 2000 and 3 000 m). When bronze was replaced by iron, there was a great decline in the importance of Alpine copper. Gold, found mainly in the Hohe Tauern (Salzburg and the eastern Alps), was mined in great quantities in pre-Roman and Roman times and played an important role in the Roman Empire. Gold mining flourished once again during the Middle Ages, when it contributed significantly to the economic strength and power of the archbishopric of Salzburg. In the 18th century, however, gold veins were slowly exhausted and mining ceased. Salt was similarly mined only in a few places in the Alps (chiefly around Salzburg and the Lower Inn Valley) in salt pits which produced valuable yields that increased the wealth of the areas involved. Today, however, its significance has virtually disappeared.

Iron working in the valleys of the Brescian Alps was of minor significance in Europe. Iron ore in this region was mined and smelted on the spot as early as 800 BC, as depicted in numerous rock
paintings in the Val Camonica. The use of iron continued and contributed to the prosperity of the city of Brescia in the Middle Ages and in modern times (Brescian steel). Iron and steel are still produced here today, although not from local mineral resources. Aside from playing a role in the wider European sense, Alpine mineral resources have been used throughout history on the local level, where they contributed to the strength of local economies. But all production had been abandoned by the 20th century; either mineral production in these areas was no longer worthwhile owing to competition, or else mineral deposits had been exhausted. Because of disadvantageous locations and the small size of the deposits, it no longer appears feasible to attempt renewed use of these resources.

Biological diversity: Very small-scale ecosystems in the Alps have produced a particularly rich biological diversity. This diversity was made even richer because glaciers did not completely cover the Alps during the Ice Ages. Many plant species which have died out in other parts of Europe since the Ice Ages survived as "endemic species" in ice-free Alpine areas. The southern part of the southwestern Alps between Avignon and Turin and the southern part of the eastern Alps between Lake Comer (Comer See) and Maribor (Marburg an der Drau) have a particularly rich diversity of species; glaciation was minimal in both these areas. There was already a much greater diversity of species in the Alps than in the rest of Europe prior to human settlement; in our own time, this is all the more so. Intensive land use throughout almost all of Europe has led to the extinction of innumerable plant species. The Alps have meanwhile become their last native habitat, even though they are not "Alpine" in the true sense of the word. Accordingly, the Alps today have become an important refuge area for a variety of European species without which the biological universe in Europe would be considerably poorer. This constitutes an especially significant resource for the future in Europe.

Also worthy of mention in this connection are agriculturally developed resources, such as numerous traditional grains and domestic animal breeds distinguished by their optimal suitability to Alpine conditions. They are the result of processes which took hundreds and thousands of years. They are indispensable for sustainable agriculture and cross-breeding with highly developed stocks in Europe (to improve both sturdiness and resistance). Their disappearance would represent a major loss. Currently, however, the problem is that these agricultural resources have almost disappeared as a result of minimal yields and in some cases no longer exist in purebred forms. In recent years, however, significant attempts have been made to renew these resources; these attempts have met with initial success. Such approaches to the problem will be increasingly important in the future.

Hot springs: As a result of Alpine geological structure, there are many thermal sources and therapeutic hot springs in the Alps. In use since Roman times, they experienced a new peak of activity in the Middle Ages when many "Bauernbäder" (farmers’ spas) existed throughout the Alps. With the beginning of proper tourism, use of these sources was limited to relatively few well-developed centres and the many farmers’ spas disappeared. At a time when concerns about health are growing rapidly, hot springs and spas in the Alps are an important resource because they represent an ideal form of preventive health care. They are all the more valuable since they are not frequently found in Europe.

Water: Because of their great elevation and the heavy amounts of precipitation they receive (extensive snow-covered surfaces where precipitation takes the form of snow throughout the year), the Alps function as an enormous European water reservoir. Their numerous glaciers store water over periods of many years which is discharged only much later. The presence of glaciers and snow ensures that outflow of winter precipitation occurs in summer. Although the Alps are not especially important as a water reservoir for central Europe (where there is year-round precipitation), they are of great importance to Mediterranean areas where summers are dry. Artificial irrigation had probably already been developed and practised in prehistoric times in the intermontane dry zones. In the Mediterranean southern zone and the neighbouring lowlands, the Alps have been an important reservoir for drinking water and irrigation since the Middle Ages. With the development of modern, intensive cultivation in the Po Valley and southern France, where the need for irrigation continues to grow, the Alps have become more important as a vast water reservoir. In light of the water pollution in major urban areas, they also have an important role to play in supplying urban populations with drinking water (Vienna, Turin and other cities obtain drinking water directly from the Alps conducted over great distances). With the development of hydroelectric power in 1880, the Alps gained additional importance as a source of energy produced from water power. Their significance in this regard increased enormously once again when long-distance transport using electrical power was introduced (starting in 1920). The potential value of water power in the Alps became apparent in yet another way in the 1980s when mass-produced electricity from atomic power plants was used to pump water into Alpine reservoirs. This water was in turn converted into peak current in winter at times when demand was heaviest, making the Alps even more important as an immense high-altitude reservoir supplying power to Europe.

Wind: Wind is a resource which has not been used in the Alps at all up to now. There are, however, many sites where the use of wind energy is likely to be highly worthwhile in view of the conditions of wind currents. Wind is likely to become a more valuable resource in the future.

Solar energy: Although the intermontane dry zones offer ideal conditions for its use, solar energy is another resource which has remained virtually unused in the Alps. Initial pilot projects are already in existence, however, and the importance of solar energy is likely to increase in the future.

In sum, it can be said that the ways in which the Alps function as a European water reservoir and as a repository of biological diversity (forests, meadows, varieties of plant and animal species, including domestic animals and plants) constitute the most important Alpine resources. Solar energy and wind energy, unused as yet, will become important in the future but will not come close to matching the significance of water and biological diversity as resources.

Constraints and dangers

Constraints and limitations on land use in the Alps may be summarized as follows.

The greatest constraint is height above sea level. As it increases, the annual growing season becomes shorter and biological processes slow down, including the regenerative capacity of ecosystems. A second constraint is the frequently poor and slow formation of soil due to very slow weathering of parent rock, so that growth of vegetation is often very modest. A third constraint is the interdependence of precipitation and warm temperatures (sunshine). This often gives rise to situations in which there is too little precipitation and too much sun or vice versa. Both limit development of vegetation. Truly optimal conditions for vegetation in the Alps are usually confined to small areas and are more often the exception than the rule. Most areas have certain natural limitations. Because the Alps are so ecologically sensitive, every favourable geological, geomorphological, climatic and hydrological factor is linked with a specific hazard.

o Where soil is deep, there is a potential danger of degradation and erosion from relief and precipitation.

o Where rock weathers particularly rapidly and easily, there is usually a great danger of landslides, rockslides, and mud flows.

o Glacial periods have made it easier to use land in the Alps, but, in many cases, they have at the same time created great hazards: landslides on extremely steep valley sides, erosion of morainal material, development of particularly easily erodible limnicolous sediments through temporary damming of lakes, etc.

o The favourable climate in the intermontane dry zones is inseparably linked to summer dryness and summer nocturnal frost.

o The favourable climate in the Mediterranean southern zone of the Alps is inseparably linked with disastrously heavy precipitation in spring and autumn.

o The flat, deep and wide valley floors in intermontane longitudinal valleys are constantly subjected to the formation of pools of cold air (temperature inversion) and threatened by floods.

Since every favourable environmental situation is linked with a specific hazard, there is an especially great danger that expanded land use and urbanization will provoke natural catastrophes. Above all, man must be careful to use nature in ways that are both environmentally compatible and sustainable.

Climate change

Small-scale climate changes, or "fluctuations" in climate, are typical of the Alps and can be most clearly seen in the behaviour of glaciers, which advance during periods when summers are moist and cool, and recede during warm, dry summers. Particularly warm periods occurred in Roman times and in the high Middle Ages, while cold periods occurred in the early Middle Ages and between 1600 and 1850 (the so-called "Little Ice Age"). Glaciers have been continually receding since 1850 (the final phase of a major glacial advance); at present they have melted down as seldom before in the last 2 000 years. This means that we have had favourable climatic conditions in the Alps for about 100 years (i.e. relatively warm and dry), while at the same time the threat of natural disasters has been somewhat reduced.

By chance, the Alps are thus in a relatively favourable and stable phase just at the time that modern large-scale development is taking place and the Alpine environment is being used intensively for modern tourism, hydroelectric power production and transit traffic. This is probably the reason why so much environmental destruction in the 20th century has not led to an increase in natural disasters. The greatest danger in the future is that the general climatic situation will worsen somewhat, once again becoming more moist and colder. In this case there would be a greater danger of natural disasters, particularly floods, mud flows and erosion. All current safety measures are based on the greatest amounts of water discharge measured to date. But since measurements with instruments have only been made with regularity for the past 100 years, all roads, bridges, dams, construction alongside streams, fortifications, etc. have been geared to the "good climate" conditions of the last 100 years. Safety measures will be insufficient if the climatic situation changes. In the light of experience with the most recent major catastrophes in the Alps resulting from extreme precipitation in the summer of 1987, it must be assumed that the suitability of the entire Alpine environment for human habitation could become questionable if climatic changes occur.

In addition, there is the question of what effect global warming would have on the Alps. It is still very difficult to distinguish between natural climatic fluctuations and warming that results from human intervention. However, the three warm winters between 1987/88 and 1989/90, when there was little snow, and the distinct increase in sultry days on the north side of the Alps appear to offer evidence of anthropogenic climate change.

But the main question is still what effect warming would have in the Alps. Would the boundary dividing the Mediterranean and central European climates (which runs through the middle of the Alps) remain fixed, with both climatic zones showing a distinct rise in temperature (rather unlikely); or, would warming have the effect of enlarging the Mediterranean subtropical zone, extending it northwards? In the first case, Alpine ecosystems would "merely" have to cope with higher temperatures. The composition of vegetation would change in all ecosystems and the ecosystems themselves would be unstable and susceptible to natural disasters during this transition period. Moreover, masses of debris currently lodged in areas of permafrost and stabilized by ice would thaw and begin to move. In the second case, however, the effects would be incomparably more dramatic, because the intermontane dry zones and major parts of the north side of the Alps would be subject to the influence of the Mediterranean climate. In addition to the consequences resulting from higher temperatures, there would be consequences resulting from a completely different precipitation regime. Severe, heavy precipitation would fall in spring and autumn in regions of the Alps which are not prepared for it (ecosystems in the present Mediterranean zone have adjusted to such precipitation over thousands of years) and cause innumerable mud flows, erosion events and floods.

These changes and the natural disasters they would bring are likely to have such force that any technology currently at our disposal would probably have little influence on them. There would then be fundamental questions about land use in the Alps.

The history of Alpine land use, settlement and economic conditions shows that the Alps have been closely linked with European development at all times throughout human history. By contrast with the mountains of Scandinavia, for example, "backwoods" or remote conditions have never developed in the Alps.

There is evidence of human life in Europe as early as 1 million years BC. The first settlers probably crossed the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe, since our earliest evidence comes from the Riviera. This is an area bordering the Alps, where, at that time, in the middle of the third Ice Age, conditions were probably satisfactory for human life (gathering of fruit and mussels, hunting and fishing–the cultures of hunters and gatherers).

There is little evidence of these cultures of hunters and gatherers in the Alps because the fourth Ice Age (from about 35 000 to 8 000 BC) erased almost all traces of them. But in view of the relatively favourable conditions for vegetation and animal life in the intermontane dry zones and the Mediterranean southern zone of the Alps, we are justified in assuming that hunters and gatherers lived here during warm interglacial periods.

The next great step forward–the development of farming and animal husbandry which led to the rise of settled agricultural societies–occurred in the Near East around 10 000 BC. These developments reached the Riviera (the border of the Alps) about 5 500 BC via the Mediterranean Sea and the eastern boundary of the Alps by way of the Balkans approximately 1 000 years later. Because the new agricultural societies displaced the cultures of hunters and gatherers, we must assume that some groups of hunters and gatherers found a temporary new home in the Alps. There is only circumstantial evidence for this assumption, however. Agricultural societies spread rapidly throughout Europe from the Riviera and the hills bordering the Rhone Valley (foothills and border of the Alps). They were characterized by the equal importance they assigned to farming and animal husbandry. While farming could be practised easily in areas with a Mediterranean climate (high temperatures and long dry periods in summer), dry summers brought considerable problems for animal husbandry because pastures withered. By contrast, Alpine pastures in the neighbouring mountains offered ideal grazing at this time of year because they had recently become free of snow and were located where sufficient water was also at hand. Many wild animals took advantage of these complementary natural conditions, changing from one type of grazing to another over extended areas between the Alps and the Mediterranean lowlands. Prehistoric farmers, learning from this, developed what has come to be known as "transhumance": animals (chiefly sheep) graze in the lowlands near the Mediterranean Sea in winter, in the hills in spring and autumn, and on Alpine pastures in summer. This practice makes seasonal use of the vertical structure of the Alps.

There are numerous indications that this form of agriculture began around 4000 BC It existed only in Alpine regions bordering Mediterranean areas, however. The entire northern side of the Alps and the eastern part of the eastern Alps were not involved. This form of land use was not exceptional; it existed in all Mediterranean mountain regions and in many mountain regions in the Near East.

At about the same time or a little later, a second, different type of land use developed in the Alps. Farming cultures established themselves permanently in the mountains, settlements were founded, and cultivation and animal husbandry were practised. For a long transitional period, these settlements could be inhabited only in summer. In winter people lived in areas bordering the mountains. Only when settlement became sufficiently dense were the Alps inhabited throughout the year. The earliest evidence of this new economic development dates from about 4 000 BC , but it very likely took 1 000-2 000 years before man could inhabit the Alps for the entire year. In contrast to transhumance, this way of Alpine life involved complete self-sufficiency in food production. Based on the economy developed in the Neolithic age in the Near East, which influenced Europe, this way of life put farming and animal husbandry on an equal basis in order to achieve self-sufficiency. Since farming requires a great deal of warmth and sun, it can be practised in the Alps only at low altitudes and where it is relatively warm, i.e. in the intermontane dry zones and the Mediterranean southern zone. The north side of the Alps and the eastern part of the eastern Alps are too cold or too humid.

The earliest subsistence economies of this type were located in the major valleys in intermontane dry zones and in the Mediterranean southern zone at low altitudes, usually below 1 000 m. The best areas at low altitudes were reserved for farming, while animal husbandry was practised at Alpine and sub-Alpine elevations, giving rise rather early on to so-called "Almwirtschaft" (Alpine farming). This system is characterized by close ties between economic activities in valleys and in Alpine pastures, which are closely intertwined in terms of operations, economic structure and law.

This model of Alpine subsistence economy (known as "Acker-Alp-Betrieb" or Alpine field farming) is found in all mountain areas of the world wherever there are settled farming societies influenced by Near Eastern patterns of development, i.e. in the entire "alpine" arc from the Pyrenees in the west to the Himalaya in Asia. The only type of land use found in this mountainous arc that is not known in the Alps is mountain nomadism, in which nomadic tribes change pastures over extensive areas from winter pastures in the lowlands to summer pastures in the mountains (in transhumance the entire family does not migrate, only the shepherds; the rest of the population stays in its native villages and practises cultivation). The reason for this is that there is no unsettled land in the lowlands near the Alps.

Thus the Alps were fully involved in the general economic and social development of the Near East and Europe, starting at the dawn of history prior to the rise of the first major European cultures. Similarly, the next major advances–the discovery and processing of copper, bronze and iron–arrived rather quickly in Europe and the Alps from the Near East (copper mining and bronze workmanship from 1800 BC; iron mining and smelting from 800 BC ). This intensified agricultural land use in the Alps since the many miners and metalworkers had to be supplied with food from the immediate surroundings.

By the time the Alps first received attention from a major culture–the first written reports of them date from Roman writers around 200 BC–they were already rather heavily settled and intensively used. Local economic development had resulted in many specialities (Alpine farming, cheese production, special types of grain and breeds of sheep and cattle, etc.) which have remained "typically Alpine" to the present day. At that time, however, not every part of the Alps was used. Only the intermontane dry zones and the southern zone were affected. Extensive areas on the north side of the Alps and in the eastern part of the eastern Alps had no human inhabitants since strongly Mediterranean cultural patterns were not suitable here.

The incorporation of the Alps into the Roman Empire (0-500 AD) brought a great increase in population and new economic activity, although these affected only the areas previously mentioned. With the fall of the Roman Empire and the invasion of numerous "barbaric" tribes (the Saracens, among others) who also laid waste to the Alps, there was a marked decline in population and many fields and pastures were left fallow, growing wild and turning to forests.

Around 500 AD, a new development took place in the Alps. Germanic tribes–the Alemannen in the West and the Bavarians in the East– advanced from the North to the edge of the Alps. This process was intensified by the addition of Slavic tribes (Slovenes) who reached the Alps from the Southeast. The previous inhabitants of the Alps had been strongly subject to Mediterranean cultural influences. Wheat, olives and wine were the most important foods and the products of animal husbandry, while undeniably important, were of somewhat secondary significance. These tribes introduced another culture and with it another diet. Like the entire area from the Atlantic to the Indus, they too had been influenced by the Neolithic economy of the Near East (with an approximately equal emphasis on farming and animal husbandry). But farming played a less important role in their culture than it did in Mediterranean areas, while animal husbandry was much more important. In their environment of immense forests in central, northern and eastern Europe with relatively low temperatures, farming was of secondary importance to animal husbandry, which was based on forest grazing. Roman writers had already described this with great amazement. As these tribes advanced into the Alps at the end of the major European folk migrations from the North, they settled scarcely used areas because farming, which was difficult and produced small yields here, was of so little importance to them. But the humid regions here offered optimal conditions for animal husbandry, which was central to their diet (many dairy products and meat, little grain production).

Thus parts of the Alps which had previously escaped human intervention were now settled. Because the most favourable areas at low altitudes were reserved for meadows (production of fodder for animals in winter) and fields occupied only small areas by comparison, this economic system is known as "Wiesen-Alp-Betrieb" (Alpine meadow farming).

Among non-Alpine areas, this economic system was also found in the mountains of Scandinavia. But it is limited to Europe and is unknown in Mediterranean and Near Eastern mountains.

Between 1000 and 1350 AD all of Europe experienced great prosperity, which was characterized by heavy population growth, the expansion of agriculture and of cities, and cultural advance. The Alps shared fully in this Europe-wide development. Heavy population growth, extensive clearing of forests, and a substantial increase in the amount of cultivable land (in the western Alps from 1000 AD and in the eastern Alps from 1100 AD to the end of 1349, when bubonic plague broke out) occurred at this time. Alpine culture flourished along with the rest of Europe and was characterized by numerous technological, economic, social and cultural innovations. The economic, social and cultural systems that developed to a high level at this time continued to have an influence in the Alps into the 19th and 20th centuries.

During this flourishing medieval period, two important innovations were introduced. They affected only small areas because the Alps were already rather densely settled. These were the "Schwaighof" (dairy farm) and the Walser
economy. "Schwaighöfe" are farms that specialize purely in animal husbandry (meat, butter and cheese production) and can accordingly exist at very high altitudes. Locations at the lower edges of Alpine pastures can thus be used for annual or permanent settlement, thereby intensifying land use. But because farmers here needed grain to survive, they traded cheese for grain. There was no market in which to conduct this exchange, which certainly would have been too complicated at that time. It was organized instead by a feudal lord who had a strong interest in more intensive land use because it meant an increase in his income. These "Schwaighöfe" were located primarily in the western part of the eastern Alps (the Tyrol and also Salzburg and Kärnten).

The Walser were farmers from the German-speaking upper part of the Canton of Wallis (Switzerland) who settled at the highest altitudes in the central Alps (between Lake Geneva and Lake Constance) during the high Middle Ages. This was possible because they too specialized only in animal husbandry and were thus not bound to farming. They also owe their settlements to the interests of local feudal lords who wanted more intensive land use; Walser settlements were frequently found in areas which had previously been used only extensively as Alpine pastures. The Walser earned additional income by doing military service in wartime, driving pack animals in transit traffic and dealing in cattle, which all brought money to buy the grain they needed.

The development and spread of the "Schwaighöfe" and the Walser settlements meant land use was at a maximum in the Alps by around 1350 AD. More intensive use for agricultural purposes was no longer possible. The Alps as of 1350 AD. were little different from the picture they presented in the 19th century.

The economic systems described here–transhumance, Alpine meadow farming, Alpine field farming, the "Schwaighof" and the Walser economy–each use different Alpine environments and regions. There is relatively little crowding out or overlap of one system with another. All these economic and social systems, though they developed at different periods in history, coexisted in the Alps into the 20th century. There is a cultural diversity which corresponds to this economic diversity. The Alps are an environment in which three major European cultures and languages–Romance, Germanic and Slavic– meet and intersect. Alpine Romance culture is composed of the Occitanian (southern French Alps, southern Piemonte Alps), the Franco-Provencal (northern French Alps, western Swiss Alps) and the Rhaeto-Romanic (eastern Swiss Alps, Dolomites, eastern Italian Alps). Germanic culture stems from the Alemannen (German-speaking Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Vorarlberg, Allgäu) and the Bavarians (Austrian Alps, southern Tyrol, German language groups in the Italian eastern Alps, Bavaria). Slavic cultures consist of the Slovenes (primarily in Slovenia/Yugoslavia but also including minorities in southern Austria and the Italian eastern Alps). In some cases there is small-scale linkage between these three major linguistic and cultural groups and their six smaller subdivisions, and there are many areas in which they intermix.

Therefore, it is impossible to summarize Alpine culture easily in terms of ethnic or linguistic groups. It is no coincidence that the concept of the European nation state could not be applied in the Alps. All attempts to establish national borders hindered and destroyed mature economic and cultural relations. Nor is it surprising that Switzerland, the "most Alpine" European country, is not a nation state in the European sense; Switzerland contains four different languages and cultures. Developments which produced the strengthening of absolutist states and led to the large nation states of the 19th
century in modern Europe were not suited to the Alps. It is thus no accident that this process put the Alps at a basic disadvantage. As a result of the formation of nation states, the Alps have been distributed over seven different countries whose borders were imprecisely defined for a long time and have been adjusted anew in the 20th century. As a result, the Alps become border regions in every country and are consequently treated as a borderline or peripheral area. Even though they form a large, continuous region in the middle of Europe, this central location has not prevented them from being completely divided up and made marginal by the formation of nation states. n

Every type of land use in the Alps changes the ecosystem in which it takes place in some definite way. If Alpine meadows are regularly grazed, for example, there is a distinct change in the composition of vegetation. On surfaces which are not grazed (left in a natural state) the ratio of grass to other plants is 2:1; on surfaces where grazing takes place this ratio is exactly reversed. Man has not only used the ecosystems he found and changed them by using them. He has also intervened directly by clearing forests, draining areas that were already too arid and reclaiming areas that were too moist. This has resulted in the creation of completely new ecosystems which did not previously exist in the Alps. Fundamentally, three major types of change in Alpine ecosystems can be identified: 1) Alpine pastures have been enlarged through the clearing of forests; 2) Cultivable land has been opened up on the lower slopes; and 3) Flood plains have been claimed for agricultural use.

Alpine pasture enlargement begins virtually unintentionally when animals take refuge in forests from heat or storms and graze on young sprouts. This weakens a forest’s ability to regenerate. In addition, the construction of buildings and fences, the production of heat and the making of cheese all require great amounts of wood on a regular basis. This wood is supplied by nearby forests; the upper limit of the forest on the lower edge of the pasture is thereby continually pushed downward. This effect, unintended at first, did have the advantage of enlarging the grazing area, however. Pastures were thus made more productive. Forests were probably purposely cleared to enlarge grazing areas in prehistoric times. We do have precise reports from the Middle Ages documenting many instances where extensive clearing of forests took place. This resulted in a noticeable enlarging of Alpine pastures, which are relatively small in their natural condition. They were enlarged to three or four times their size (more often in the western Alps than the eastern Alps). Today, the best and most fertile Alpine pastures are found on surfaces that were previously cleared. Such pastures are important because they are a natural resource and because purposeful human intervention has enlarged and enhanced them.

Cultivable land on lower slopes: From the time he first practised agriculture in the Alps, man has had to clear forests in order to survive, since all potentially cultivable land was originally forest land. Since flat valley floors were greatly threatened by floods and often at a climatic disadvantage (temperature inversion resulting from cold air pools), the first fields were cleared areas on the alluvial cones of tributary streams. These were on sites where the tributary streams opened into the main valley and deposited large amounts of gravel in the form of cones. Such sites were protected from floodwaters and were exceptionally fertile, although they were inseparably linked with the disadvantage of flooding from the tributary stream. Settlements in these areas are among the oldest in the Alps and have remained intact to this day. Somewhat later, the flatter portions of slopes facing south in the vicinity of the valley floor were also cleared and converted into cultivable land. Shaded slopes (facing north) were usually not cleared since they promised little yield; their forests were used for economic purposes. In time, cleared and cultivated areas near valleys became larger and larger. There was a threat that the process of clearing Alpine pastures downwards from above would encounter the process of clearing valley floors upwards from below. At this point farmers noticed that the uninterrupted clearing of mountain slopes was accompanied by uncontrollable avalanche problems. Thus a so-called "Bannwald" (protective forest) was purposely left between the two cleared areas. Early references to these protective forests were made in some of the oldest documents of the Middle Ages, and their preservation was considered absolutely necessary to prevent natural disasters.

Flood plain reclamation on valley floors for agricultural use represents the most recent type of change in the Alps. Valley floors, which are used so intensively today and appear to offer a very hospitable form of land use, have been a source of great difficulty throughout human history because the problem of large amounts of water here could not be overcome by simple technology. Consequently, many flood plains, often extensive in area, were either totally unused for a very long time or used only very extensively as grazing areas in times when the water receded. Only in the 19th and 20th centuries did improvement take place on a large scale. Rivers were straightened and deepened, and land which had previously been very moist was claimed for use, divided into plots, and used as pasture land. Despite this, there were no homes or settlements in these areas until about 1960. Only barns could be found; the inhabitants knew all too well that the threat of floods was constant.

All altitudinal belts were affected by these changes in Alpine ecosystems. Even the most remote grass plots above rockslides were used, with the result that their vegetation was altered too. Basically, all Alpine ecosystems, with the exception of rocky areas and glaciers hostile to vegetation, were altered by traditional land use.

These changes are linked to severe ecological problems. Since forests are the best possible protection against erosion, avalanche and floods, large-scale clearing of forests has resulted in greater runoff on fields, meadows and pastures and a marked increase in avalanches and erosion. Land under cultivation is therefore less stable than land in its natural state. This is related to the increase in natural disasters and threats arising from natural processes. If man does not want to surrender the chance to live in the Alps, he will have to engage in sustainable economic activity. This activity must be aimed not only at producing food but also at stabilizing the ecology on cultivated land. The following four points summarize our knowledge of this problem based on experience in the Alps over thousands of years:

1) Man must take account of different ecosystems as he uses the land and make adjustments accordingly. Any monostructural, large-scale land use practice will automatically produce environmental damage, given the environmental differences that occur within small areas. Attention must be given to existing natural variations, and land use patterns must be developed on a correspondingly small scale.

2) Specific land use practices must be chosen not only to produce food but also to ensure ecological stability at the same time. The threat of erosion is severe on cultivated land because there is no protective vegetation cover between harvesting and the time newly planted seeds begin to sprout. Therefore, fields must be terraced to reduce the gradient of slopes and hence the threat of erosion. On meadows, proper intervals between cutting are important. If they are cut too frequently, regeneration of the vegetation will be poor; if they are not cut often enough, bush and shrubs will grow, making the meadow unproductive. Just as important is the correct cutting time. If meadows are cut too early, vegetation will not regenerate well, but if they are cut too late, the hay will lose its nutritive value. On grazing land, the proper number of animals is an important factor. Alpine pastures can be overgrazed and their vegetation cover destroyed by too many animals, while if there are too few animals, grazing will be selective, the best plants will soon disappear, and the pasture will turn to weed. The same holds true for the beginning and end of the grazing period. In sum, this means that the environmental suitability of a particular land use practice–the "proper" type of cultivation–plays a key role in sustainability. Farmers throughout the Alps were thoroughly aware of this, and such "proper" uses were set down in many detailed regulations, the application of which was enforced by communal ordinances, etc.

3) Not every slope in the Alps can be cleared and used intensively if we wish to avoid inducing natural disasters. Depending on specific local conditions, slopes whose gradients were above a certain limit (with steepness always considered in relation to exposure and altitude) remained untouched and protected. This meant recognizing certain limits on land use. Yet this is not a matter of absolute but
of relative limits, as the history of land use in the Alps has shown. As various new developments (transhumance, Alpine field farming, Alpine meadow farming, the "Schwaighof" and Walser economies) came about, limits on use which had previously seemed insurmountable were removed in every case and available space in the Alps was expanded. But in each case new limits on use were also established and respected.

4) Even if these three land-use strategies are observed, cultivated land in the Alps will not have the ecological stability man needs in order to live in relative security. A great deal of maintenance and repair work will also be necessary to give cultivated land additional stability. This includes transporting eroded soil uphill, improving eroded areas, and clearing away debris from avalanches on Alpine pastures in spring. Such work should also be aimed at reducing and neutralizing the "erratic" dynamics of nature somewhat by clearing stream beds to prevent obstruction (blockage and damming caused by trees, rocks, etc. with consequent floods), building levees to prevent flooding, etc. This maintenance and repair work has always required a great deal of labour in the past, but there was never a shortage of manpower.

As long as these four principles of land use were observed, it was possible to maintain the same degree of ecological stability on cultivated land in the Alps as on land untouched by man. In some cases, where the natural environment was particularly unstable, it was even possible to reduce this instability somewhat by using the land.

In principle, it can be said that the actual question of how land should be used in the right manner has always been open to controversy. On the whole, however, sustainable use has prevailed and has been maintained for centuries.

This sustainability was also the cause of two further important changes. Vegetation in the Alpine environment is for the most part composed of different forest societies, some of which do not have a very wide variety of species. By clearing and opening up forests and introducing new plants (agricultural vegetation and plants from the Near East), man markedly increased the diversity of plant species. At the same time, he changed the landscape by dividing it into smaller areas and making it more diversified. While a forest levels the differences on a slope and blends into the landscape, land use adapted to these ecological differences on a small scale brings out the differences and emphasizes them. This caused a fundamental change in the Alpine landscape. While it had been rather stark and somewhat monotonous in its natural state, human intervention changed this by making it considerably more diversified and dividing it up into smaller ecosystems. This was an important precondition for the later development of tourism which is often overlooked.

A certain amount of social control and cultural identity is necessary to put these four principles of sustainable activity into practice and ensure their continuance. Even in the Middle Ages short-term overuse of Alpine pastures using "Lehnvieh" (livestock owned by people living in the lowlands which was grazed on Alpine meadows in exchange for payment) would have been very profitable for an individual farmer or a commune since demand at the time was very high. But short-term gain had to be balanced against the long-term disadvantage of degradation of the vegetation cover. As early as the Middle Ages it was clearly decided that short-term gain at the cost of long-term damage was not acceptable. This meant that selfish individual interests had to be restrained in the interest of the entire community and future generations. Community interests came first because Alpine farmers, like all other European farmers until well into the 19th century, did not think and act as individuals but regarded themselves as one link in a chain of the many who had come before them and who would succeed them. In addition, farmers throughout the Alps are known for their aversion to innovation and risk. Because reaction in the form of natural disasters is swift when one makes a mistake in dealing with nature in the Alpine environment, the willingness to experiment is not very great as a rule. Furthermore, two social and cultural systems guaranteed and exercised control over sustainable agriculture, the "Gemeinde" (commune) and the "Hof" (farmstead) systems.

The "commune system" is the older form, found in those regions of the Alps that were already heavily settled in Roman times. Here, where Alpine field farming was practised, there was equal inheritance (with each child receiving patrimony in equal portions) and dispersion of property, with each family farming numerous small plots distributed at different altitudes. The communal statutes were a characteristic feature of such communes. Most of these statutes were fashioned in the Middle Ages (modelled on the "communal" origins of northern Italian cities) and contained specific expressions of limits on land use as well as land use regulations. Strict enforcement of these statutes was exercised by the village community and many villages had an official field warden who enforced statues with police authority. The individual was thus limited in the use of his own property and could not use it merely as he pleased. This system also existed in a similar form throughout Europe but only in areas of early settlement, i.e. those parts of Europe which had already been heavily settled and used in Roman times.

The "farmstead system" is the more recent system. It was found in those regions of the Alps that were settled late by Germans and Slavs. Here there were usually no actual villages but dispersed settlement in which individual farmhouses stood alone. Only where there was a church could three or four adjoining farms be found. Alpine meadow farming was practised in this system and the law of entail prevailed, meaning that only one son could inherit the entire farmstead while his siblings received nothing. All property usually adjoined the farm so that each was fully independent of others in terms of space. In some cases there were as many as 20-30 domestic servants on large farmsteads, while in other cases the farms were small and had only a few domestic servants. But common to all was a highly independent lifestyle and little contact with other farms. Control over sustainable use rested solely with a farmer or married couple engaged in farming; these individuals possessed a great deal of personal freedom of action. The future heir was prepared from early childhood to fulfil the responsibilities of this task in accordance with the motto, "Übergib den Hof so an deinen Sohn, wie du ihn von deinem Vater übernommen hast" (Leave the farm to your son as you received it from your father). In other words, take no short-term gain for yourself at the expense of future generations. The novels of Jeremias Gotthelf, a pastor from the Emmental (Emme River Valley, Switzerland), illustrate very clearly what a struggle it was to teach a sense of ecological responsibility and how difficult this was to achieve in actual practice (see, above all, Uli der Knecht and Uli der Pächter, 1840).

But to make such environmentally responsible behaviour possible in practice, a certain political framework was necessary. Only where farmers had a certain freedom to manage their own affairs could they act in an environmentally responsible way. If they were directly subject to a superior only interested in obtaining the greatest yield from "his" land in the short term, then they had very little such freedom. Very different political structures developed between the Middle Ages and the 19th century in the Alps. But despite pronounced differences, one thing became quite common: farmers in many cases were able to fight for and obtain conditions which made environmentally responsible land use possible. They were sometimes supported in this by minor feudal lords (the counts of Tyrol, for example) who had realized that short-term exploitation of their land would undermine their own sovereign authority as well as their power.

Since the Alps are situated in the centre of Europe and control of Alpine passes during the Middle Ages and afterwards was extremely important for reasons of military strategy, autonomous political organization was almost impossible. Instead, political development was increasingly subject to and shaped by external forces. As early as the Middle Ages, associations similar to alliances between small states (Alpine regions with a certain amount of political autonomy) developed in many regions of the Alps, usually to unite different Alpine valleys in the vicinity of an important mountain pass. These "states" generally enjoyed complete equality on the basis of federalism, while environmentally sound behaviour within each one was taken for granted in most cases. If the great European powers had not intervened in the Alps in order to control mountain passes, a large confederation with many entire Alpine valleys probably would have come into existence. Switzerland represents the only case in which a small part of the Alps remained exempt from the developments which led to large European nation states. The political structure of Switzerland dates from the time of one of these state-like alliances on the Gotthard pass ("Urkantone" or original cantons) which allied with cities beneath the Alps (Zurich, Berne) since they had a mutual interest in increasing their strength. This political form has survived to the present day. The development of the Tyrol in the eastern Alps followed a similar course for a long time until the Habsburg Empire became too powerful for it. In the western Alps, the Federation of Briancon existed from the Middle Ages to 1715 as an almost completely independent state until it was absorbed by France.

Although autonomous Alpine development that would have ensured sustainable agriculture in the Alps was prevented at the highest political level, farming societies frequently fought for and gained the political freedom and autonomy at lower levels that were necessary to guarantee such sustainability.

Of course, this does not mean that there was no human involvement in environmental destruction in earlier times. The most damaging interventions occurred as the result of mining, smelting and salt pit operations, whose enormous need for wood led to complete deforestation in many places. Overuse of the land for agricultural purposes also regularly produced environmental destruction. Yet despite this, we know today that sustainable use of resources in the Alps usually prevailed over short-term exploitation and overuse throughout the course of history. For this reason, the Alps in their traditional form–as a primarily agricultural landscape–are particularly valuable and worthy of protection in the 20th century. This assessment does not reflect the judgement of tourists. It is based on established facts in biology, plant sociology and landscape ecology. n

Modern industrial society began to develop at the end of the 18th century and spread throughout Europe in the 19th century. It was characterized by economic production in which manual labour was separated from intellectual tasks and further divided up into very small steps. Machines and tools were used on a large scale to replace human labour, and external sources of energy were employed to run machines. This resulted in such a revolutionary reduction in the costs of production that all preindustrial production methods met with ruin because they were too costly. For this new economic form to triumph, the dismantling of customs barriers (one of the guiding political principles of liberalism) was necessary at the political level. A radical reduction in transportation costs was also necessary and was accomplished with the invention of the railway and the steamship and, later, the automobile and the truck.

The social changes which accompanied industrialization were so great that they can only be compared in human history with the transition from the Paleolithic Age (cultures of hunters and gatherers) to the Neolithic Age (agricultural societies).

Industrialization was the main cause of the total breakdown of traditional economic and social structures in the Alps in the 19th and 20th centuries. This has involved breakdowns of traditional Alpine agriculture, forest use, local industries (mining, smelting, salt pits) and handicrafts, and traditional cultural identity, values and attitudes. Only relicts of this traditional world remain today. On a worldwide scale, this revolutionary change can be compared with the subjugation of the countries of the Third World, the only difference being that it occurred in central Europe.

Changes began to take place around 1850 with the first railway line through the Alps. Alpine agriculture was now exposed to competition from substantially more productive areas of Europe where growing conditions were more favourable. In the wake of major agricultural crises in all European countries (owing to the import of cheap grain from new colonies), large-scale collapse began in the Alps between 1870 and 1880, when Alpine inhabitants ceased farming and migrated to large cities. This break-
down proceeded much more rapidly in regions
practising Alpine field farming (very small farms, grain production under extremely difficult conditions and hence low yields, innovation severely restricted by the "commune system") than it did in regions practising Alpine meadow farming (relatively large farms, animal husbandry still competitive to an extent within western Europe, capable of innovation on the basis of the "farmstead system"). Migration at this time from the French and Italian Alps was much greater than from the Swiss and Austrian Alps.

Along with agriculture, local handicrafts and industries also failed. Between 1850 and 1955 there were only three countermovements: tourism, industry and transportation.

Tourism in the Alps is closely connected with new perceptions of the environment in the industrial age (exploitation of nature through processes of production accompanied by a simultaneous idealization of nature, including an aesthetic integration of nature and leisure-time activities). Alpine tourism began around 1780, although it remained highly exclusive for a long time, drawing very few people to the Alps. Only between 1880 and 1914, the so-called Belle Epoque, did a quantitative increase in activity occur; many large hotels and mountain railways were built during this period. But the development of tourism continued to be limited, with only a few communes (primarily in Switzerland) profiting from it.

Starting around 1880 (with the invention of hydroelectric power) industry came to the Alps on a large scale wherever water power could be easily used (the Swiss canton of Wallis, Sillon Alpin in the northern French Alps). The communes affected experienced great increases in economic development and population, although once again very few communes were involved.

Transit traffic through the Alps, which existed only in the form of railway transportation until 1955, meant that communes along major railway lines enjoyed advantageous locations and prosperity which often led to further positive development.

Given the widespread breakdown in agriculture, mining and handicrafts throughout the Alps, the prosperity brought by tourism, industry and transport was only of secondary importance and affected only small areas. Crisis overtook the Alps, and the entire region became an economically weak area with a high rate of emigration.

Beginning around 1955, the industrialized countries of Europe entered a new phase characterized by the transition to a service economy. The basic features of industrial society were maintained (division of labour, manpower replaced by machines and computers, greater use of outside sources of energy). But such great change occurred that this period must be designated as a new phase of the industrial age.

The service sector is now becoming more and more important as a part of the overall economy for several reasons, while improvements in efficiency in agriculture and industry have continued, with an accompanying decline in jobs. A constant increase in the division of labour means there is a greater need for administration, coordination and regulation. More and more jobs which were formerly done in families or by women (caring for and raising children, caring for the elderly, housekeeping) are becoming paid positions. And great increases in income with a simultaneous shortening of working hours are giving rise to an independent sector based on leisure-time pursuits and cultural interests. The importance of this sector continues to grow.

All of this is helping to restore the importance of the Alps within Europe. Starting about 1955, mass tourism became a part of life in Europe, with summer tourism beginning around 1955 and winter tourism around 1965. Large areas of the Alps are being newly enhanced as resort locations. Although widespread, the phenomenon of mass tourism is not prevalent throughout the Alps; it has affected only about 50-60 per cent of their total area. In the 1980s there was a second development. Increasing numbers of people in Europe began to flee heavily polluted urban areas and seek places to live and work where they would have healthy and pleasant surroundings. New jobs (usually in the service sector or state-of-the-art industrial operations) are being created at the edge of the Alps and to some extent in the mountains themselves. Those who hold these jobs live in or near Alpine farming villages, which are being completely restructured and are assuming a new character. The Alps are being enhanced by this latter development thanks to their central location within Europe and their healthy environment.

The relation of the Alps to Europe is once again being fundamentally altered. No longer are they a culturally and economically weak region. They are a developing European resort area and a newly discovered economic region with a high-quality environment. n

The use of Alpine resources in the age of the service economy

Alpine agriculture

The process of breakdown in Alpine agriculture which had started in the second half of the 19th century continued after the Second World War. There is an important parallel to European economic conditions in this process. At times when the European economy flourishes, jobs are plentiful, and manpower is needed, there is a sharp decline in Alpine agriculture, as many former farmers migrate to cities. In times of recession and unemployment, there is a much less marked decline in Alpine agriculture, but at the same time farming shows no increase in economic stability because it is not in a position to be competitive in the European marketplace. This was perhaps best illustrated in the first half of the 1960s. Great economic growth in Europe (the "economic miracle") coincided with a sharp decline in Alpine farming, during which time many unfavourable and poorly accessible cultivated areas were abandoned. The results of this period of decline are clearly noticeable on the landscape today. In the 1950s the first governmental measures to aid agriculture were instituted in an attempt to halt the process of breakdown and these measures have been considerably expanded and strengthened since the 1970s. But despite heavy subsidies in some cases, it has not been possible to stop this process, only to delay it. Currently, the status of agriculture in the Alps varies greatly from region to region.

The intermontane dry zones and the southern zone with traditional Alpine field farming are almost at the point of final breakdown; in many Alpine valleys impending breakdown can no longer be halted. In the eastern part of the eastern Alps, massive reafforestation has been carried out in the 19th and 20th centuries, forcing farmers who lived there to migrate on a large scale. In the northern part of the Alps, with traditional Alpine meadow farming, the situation is relatively good by comparison. This is the area which has profited directly from government subsidies and where many operating farms can be found. But farmers here are usually older and it is often unclear whether anyone will succeed them. Or they are part-time farmers who earn their living in tourism, industry and the service sector. If these conditions persist, farming here will have no future either, although final breakdown is still 10-15 years away, so there is still time to take countermeasures.

It is characteristic of Alpine agriculture today that traditional forms of sustainable use can no longer be carried out because they are too costly (manual labour has become too expensive). Above all, the maintenance and repair work that was so important was suspended 30 years ago. In the meantime, Alpine agriculture has been abandoned in all unfavourable and poorly accessible areas because the expenses associated with it there are greater than the yields. At the same time, favourable areas on valley floors whose soil has since been enriched, areas on lower slopes, and well-situated Alpine pastures are all used more intensively today than in earlier times.

There are considerable ecological problems associated with both of the above situations. Abandoning steep Alpine pastures increases the danger of avalanches and erosion, while species diversity disappears because wild brush or forests begin to grow. Yet this is a very slow process; new forests arise spontaneously mainly where they are not needed as a protection against avalanches. During these stages of plant succession (stages of vegetation in the transition from cultivable land to climax vegetation in accordance with the particular location) ecosystems are unstable and there is a greater danger of natural disasters. This transitional period lasts for approximately 200-300 years depending on the site; in high and arid locations, however, it lasts for many hundreds of years.

Today farmers in intensively cultivated areas are forced to produce the greatest quantities possible for economic reasons. Land use everywhere is exceeding the limits of what has historically constituted sustainable agriculture. On meadows used for fodder this occurs primarily in the form of large-scale application of artificial fertilizers and manure and also in the change from traditional cutting twice a year to silage cutting every three or four weeks. The production of hay is thereby greatly increased but at the expense of both species diversity and ecological stability on these traditional meadows. In many places today great changes in contour are also being made, using bulldozers to level hills and other uneven relief so machinery can be employed on the land. Soil which has developed over a long time is thereby being destroyed and so is the traditional small-scale nature of agriculture. This involves severe disturbances to ecological stability as well as substantially less biological diversity in the vegetation, introducing monotony on landscapes which were once richly diversified within small areas.

On pasture land today, and on Alpine pastures above all, animals often graze unsupervised, with the result that grazing is concentrated in areas that are level, very favourable, and easy to reach, while the remaining areas are hardly used at all. There is severe overgrazing in the good areas, with the corresponding ecological problems, while pronounced underuse and its corresponding ecological problems (increase in avalanches and threat of erosion on steep surfaces, wild growth, less species diversity, less valuable fodder) are apparent in the remaining areas.

Alpine agriculture today can thus hardly be called sustainable. For all practical purposes, only elderly farmers who do not yet think in modern economic terms practise sustainable agriculture. Soon, however, such farmers will no longer exist.

Nonetheless, agricultural practices are exhibiting several encouraging and positive trends. Young people are rediscovering the virtues of traditional agriculture and its sustainable forms of land use. They are founding new agricultural associations, and traditional strains of sheep and cattle are increasingly being bred once again. Traditional grains are also being cultivated anew and alternative agricultural products such as herbs and curative plants are being developed. But all these initiatives, important as they are, will only be able to reinvigorate Alpine agriculture if new economic and political conditions are created throughout the Alps which make agriculture economically feasible. A very important precondition in this regard will be a new agricultural policy in the European Community.

Forestry

Throughout human history forests have always been one of man’s most important resources. But industrialization has completely devalued forests as an economic resource. The need for wood has dropped sharply in Europe because it was first replaced as a source of energy by coal and later by oil and natural gas. The prices of energy from these sources are so low that domestic timber cannot compete with them. In addition, harvesting timber in the Alps is very costly and trees there grow relatively slowly due to the elevation. Wood imported from the Third World or cut very inexpensively in Scandinavia (huge tracts of forest land which can be cut cheaply and in which timber harvesting is almost completely automated) is cheaper than any other source of supply. This situation brought about a gradual breakdown in the market for Alpine timber following the Second World War. Since the 1970s prices have been so low that many Alpine forests are no longer used.

Alpine forests have now often grown too old as a result of disuse. This superannuation is leading to ecological instability in forests once used for commercial purposes. There is also a danger of large-scale deterioration in the near future, as extensive forest stands of the same age continue to grow old. It will be necessary to institute measures which aim at the gradual conversion of these former commercial forests into forests where natural regeneration takes place.

Air pollution is another danger which threatens forests. There are two sources of such pollution. One is general, European-wide pollution emitted in industrial and urban areas which reaches primarily the northern zone of the Alps, where it causes damage to forests. A second source is the severe local pollution caused by transit traffic through the Alps, heavy traffic in the inner Alps (including tourist traffic) and home heating emissions from numerous areas where large-scale settlement has developed. This type of pollution is especially heavy in cities in the inner Alps, in major tourist centres, and along major transport routes. Some settlements have already had to be evacuated in these areas owing to pollution which has weakened forests so much that they no longer provide protection against avalanches.

Superannuation of forests in the eastern Alps has been intensified by hunting. In this region the hunting of red deer and chamois is a privilege of the rich and of highly placed politicians who do not like to wait long while stalking their prey. Accordingly, wildlife here is very dense. In winter these animals browse young trees and severely diminish forest regeneration.

All these factors intensify one another. As a result, forests are now becoming ecologically unstable and gradually less effective in providing protection–an extremely important function. Their role as a valuable commercial resource is disappearing. The problem is especially acute in valleys, where the protective role of forests is particularly important. This is true above all in those valleys where transit and tourist traffic are heavy. It is here that the threat of ecological problems is greatest.

Yet encouraging and important new approaches can also be seen in the areas of forestry and forest use. Examples include afforestation and new uses of wood as an energy source in "Schnitzelfeuerungsanlagen" (installations fired by wood scraps). These new approaches will only have an effect, however, if European energy policies are changed. As long as non-renewable sources such as coal, oil and natural gas are so inexpensive, wood from regenerated European forests will remain a non-competitive resource.

Industry in the Alps

Major industrial establishments in the Alps from the period prior to the First World War suffered a crisis after the Second World War because their advantageous locations (based on energy from hydroelectric power) no longer played any role and their remote sites in the mountains had meanwhile become a major competitive disadvantage. Many jobs are currently being eliminated at such locations and the future does not look at all encouraging. During prosperous times in the 1960s, a great number of industrial branch operations were located in the Alps because inexpensive manpower had become scarce in major urban areas. But many of these operations closed down with the onset of recession after 1975.

Although the outlook for industry in the Alps may not be good at present, many industrial jobs exist nonetheless, probably considerably more than one might think at first glance. Forty per cent of all jobs in the Austrian Alps are said to be industrial jobs, but jobs in the construction industry which are primarily dependent on tourism (especially the building of condominiums and vacation homes) must be subtracted from this estimate. Yet even accounting for this, it is likely that 20-25 per cent of all jobs are in industry. From an ecological point of view, industrial operations are major polluters (sources of air and water pollution) and do damage to entire Alpine regions. Economically, industrial jobs are very important, however, in order to avoid development of infrastructure devoted only to tourism and to prevent the Alps from becoming totally dependent on trends in the tourist industry. There is also a cultural dimension. It is very important that well-trained, innovative individuals stay in mountain regions and do not have to emigrate due to a lack of skilled jobs. Maintaining industrial jobs in the Alps while at the same time ensuring their ecological soundness will be a major task for the future.

Currently there is sharp debate in the Alps over the question of whether new technology (EDP and computer-related jobs) could enhance the region as the site of information processing operations and other services. Here there is a distinct cultural gap between the "Mediterranean" and the "Germanic" areas of the Alps. In France, Italy and French-speaking Switzerland, there is great enthusiasm about these new options and some feeling that the future of the Alps lies in locating such new operations there. In Germany, Austria, and German-speaking Switzerland, by contrast, this development is viewed with great scepticism. Here it is assumed that nothing like this is likely to materialize in the Alps because very few skilled jobs will be relocated in the mountains. For cultural and social reasons, skilled jobs are likely to remain within commuting distance of major urban areas.

The present challenge is to use new technology to maintain at least those industrial sites and jobs that currently exist.

Tourism

Tourism is presently the strongest economic force in the Alps. Without it, many people would have had to abandon the mountains in the 20th century. Until about 1955 there was only a very modest infrastructure devoted to tourism. Between 1955 and 1965 the first period of expansion and boom in the tourist industry occurred, and between 1965–when mass tourism in winter began–and 1980, an even greater second period of boom and expansion took place. Between 1980 and 1990 there was some evidence of high-level stagnation and saturation, which led to greatly intensified and often ruinous, competition.

At present, lodging capacity is approximately 5 million beds; about 100 million people (40million vacationers and 60 million weekend excursionists) visit the Alps annually. Roughly 25 per cent of annual worldwide turnover in the tourist industry is generated in the Alps.

There are considerable differences from country to country, however. An awareness of these differences is necessary to understand the problems of tourism as they currently exist.

o In France there are many huge winter sports centres which have been conceived, planned and financed in Paris. They are completely independent of the local economy and culture of the French Alps and represent economic, social and cultural influences foreign to the area. The tourist industry in France is further distributed among many small and very small tourist communes which are now barely able to remain competitive.

o In Italy a number of large tourist centres have been built with outside financing. In addition, there are many medium-sized and smaller ski areas developed for speculative purposes by real estate companies in order to sell condominiums. These often exhibit chaotic planning, are poorly built, and represent a waste of resources. Many small tourist resorts also still exist today, although the conditions of their existence are becoming increasingly difficult.

o In Switzerland the infrastructure of the Belle Epoque (large old hotels, rack railways) still exists and is currently enjoying new esteem (based on nostalgia). Many resort areas developed at this time have now become large tourist centres (Davos, Zermatt). In addition, tourism based on second homes and vacation homes is very widespread and has provided a great deal of work in the construction industry. A cutback in new construction, although desirable on ecological, cultural and social grounds, would be linked with the disadvantage of loss of skilled jobs in the construction industry.

o In Austria tourism has been purposely decentralized under governmental supervision. There is an extensive network of bed and breakfast establishments, small pensions, and small hotels owned by native inhabitants. Nonetheless, it is precisely these small local operations that are today barely able to compete with big hotel chains and international operators.

o In Bavaria land use in the Alps is especially dense because the area is used both by tourists for holidays and by people in Munich for recreation. Accordingly, the volume of tourism here is especially heavy.

o In Slovenia development of tourism has been minimal because the previous socialist Republic of Slovenia promoted industrialization in the Slovenian Alps on a systematic basis and prohibited tourism. Recently, there have been new developments very detrimental to making tourism attractive in Slovenia: the many industrial operations here have produced major air and water pollution in the Alps, which will make it difficult to develop the area for tourism.

Present-day problems relating to tourism in the Alps can be summarized as follows:

1) Small-scale local operations–small pensions and hotels owned by native inhabitants and small tourist resorts–have less and less chance of succeeding in the tourist industry owing to stiff competition. Major operators such as international hotel chains and large tourist centres, which book more than 1 million overnight stays annually, are continuing to gain a greater share of the market. Native inhabitants are being forced from this very important sector of the economy while the domination of well-capitalized, externally based operations grows stronger.

2) In the last 100 years, tourist centres have often trebled and quadrupled their populations. Many new residents drawn to these areas have increasingly been taking over positions of responsibility in the commune, while local residents are starting to become alienated from their native habitat.

3) Land has been used intensively for infrastructure to support tourism and transport. This has combined with population increase to cause such a sharp rise in property values in tourist centres that counterproductive effects have been produced (prices are now similar to those in major European urban areas). Only major commercial enterprises can pay the high prices for land in these areas. Small hotels and pensions are facing ruin as a result. Above all, building sites and rental apartments are becoming unaffordable for local residents. Many natives have already been forced to leave. This process is bound to bring considerable social tension in the future.

4) Environmental damage in the form of soil, water and air pollution, and excessive noise are present in major tourist centres. This has been caused by intensive development and the traffic brought by tourists and those who supply the tourist industry. Pollution and noise now exist on a scale comparable to that in major European metropolitan areas. Additional environmental damage is caused by ski pistes, innumerable hikers in sensitive highland areas, restaurants located on mountain summits, etc. Even though there have been noticeable improvements and ecological restoration was undertaken precisely in these areas during the 1980s, mass tourism on the whole poses a major environmental threat to Alpine ecosystems in sensitive highland areas.

5) Native inhabitants in tourist centres are being confronted with the values of post-industrial society and find themselves becoming the "servants" of their visitors. Modern values appear to be exemplary and traditional values seem outmoded and outdated. The conflict between these two worlds is so great that it is almost impossible to deal with in personal terms. Because the subject is not discussed publicly and no connections exist between these two worlds, there is an attempt to solve existing problems on an individual level. Alcoholism (since alcohol is a socially acceptable drug), misuse of tablets, and drug use (primarily among the young) are found frequently. These developments constitute a problem more surrounded by taboo than any other subject in the Alps and whose very mention excites strong reactions. Cultural and social tensions and conflicts threaten to break out. This could severely disrupt the further development of tourism.

Despite the stagnation of the 1980s, there seem to be no economic difficulties with regard to the further development of tourism in the Alps (continued growth appears to be proceeding without problems in the 1990s). On the other hand, major ecological, social and cultural problems have arisen which have the potential to grow quickly and produce counterproductive results. A few regions (e.g. the Tyrol) have recognized these problems and have declared their intention to halt their further development. These regions are currently emphasizing the ecological soundness of tourist installations and the solution of social and cultural conflicts. But these are only isolated undertakings which point in the right direction; they must be applied in all regions where tourism exists.

Non-tourist services

Non-tourist services are defined to include all forms of government administration down to the communal level, social services, training programmes, health and educational services, commerce, banking and insurance, and cultural affairs. Historically, these services have always played a certain role in Alpine cities. But since the Second World War this sector of the economy has become generally much more important. It experienced a certain boom in the 1980s which is likely to continue in the future.

The reason for this growth is the presence of many people with great purchasing power in Alpine tourist centres. Major tourist centres have thus become important locations for banks, insurance companies, real estate agencies, holding companies, and other services (the so-called tourist-related non-tourist services). Moreover, services which are not dependent on a specific location, such as advertising, design, information processing, etc., are increasingly being moved to the Alps or their immediate vicinity because the environment is considerably more attractive and healthier there than in major urban areas. This development is already quite advanced in France, in the Geneva-Annecy-Chambéry-Grenoble metropolitan belt. Here, in large valley channels easily accessible by car, many new businesses have appeared. Their employees live in what were once mountain villages, where there has been a sharp drop in population in the last 100 years. The French refer to this as "rurbanization", the urbanization of rural areas without the introduction of city structures. There has been little study of this phenomenon in other countries to date. But it can be assumed that it already plays a considerable role in all large cities in the Alps or bordering them. Its significance is likely to increase substantially in the future because of the central European location of the Alps and the attractive environment they offer.

Water resources management

Production of hydroelectric power in the Alps now takes place on such a scale that there is no longer a single major river which flows for its entire course in a natural condition, and there are fewer than ten major Alpine rivers whose courses are uninterrupted for more than 15 km.

The use of water resources can be sub-divided into four different categories:

1) drinking water (obtained in the Alps and piped into large cities);

2) water for irrigation (the largest reservoir in the Alps, the Lac de Serre-Poncon in the southern Alps of France, is devoted primarily to this purpose);

3) production of electricity in run-of-river power stations and

4) storage of electricity.

Power storage stations represent the greatest intervention in the environment because natural lakes at high altitudes in the vicinity of Alpine pastures have been artificially enlarged and flat valley floors have been converted into lakes. The water is usually used to produce electricity in winter, so stream flow patterns are completely altered. In earlier times rivers and streams conducted the most water in summer and the least in winter, today this situation is often reversed. The result is extensive change in all river ecosystems. An even greater environmental impact has been caused by the diversion of many streams since 1955. In order to expand the production of water power in high-altitude stations, tunnels were built for large-scale diversion of streams over extensive areas. The streams were then conducted into reservoirs. The water budget in many Alpine regions has been completely altered as a result. Many streams have dried up today or have very little water left, while a disproportionate share of water flows under large power stations.

In the second half of the 1980s new plans were developed to expand the production of hydroelectric power. Since there was already an adequate supply of mass-produced energy in Europe (chiefly from atomic power plants), it became economically feasible to use this energy to pump water upwards into high-altitude reservoirs. This way, hydroelectric power could be produced and sold later at times of peak demand (winter) as "peak current" (costing four times as much as less expensively produced energy). This does not constitute "energy production" but "energy enrichment", an economic transaction which produces no new electrical energy. New and extraordinarily large water reservoirs for this purpose are planned for the Alps with total volumes approximately four times as large as those now in existence. Because these plans are linked with major environmental impacts, they are being vigorously opposed by environmentalists. The idea is to make the Alps into an immense water reservoir which will supply Europe. Many Alpine valleys which are currently not used for tourism are also destined to be converted into reservoirs.

Fundamentally, man’s use of water resources constitutes a severe, large-scale intervention in Alpine ecosystems. To date, virtually no major Alpine stream or river has remained untouched. This has completely altered Alpine hydrological conditions in two ways. There have been extensive changes in regional stream flow patterns as the result of widespread diversion of water into large reservoirs, and there has been a shift in the main discharge of water from summer to winter.

It is clear that European interests outside the Alps have determined that water resources must be used and also how they are used, while taking relatively little account of the interests of Alpine inhabitants. "Colonization of the Alps by European cities" is an expression applicable in the case of water resources, and is heard primarily in Italy. Provisions for financial compensation for Alpine residents vary greatly throughout the Alps. In countries with centralized political systems like France and Italy, there is hardly any compensation. In Germany and Austria, it is substantially greater, and it is highest of all in Switzerland. But even here there is the question of whether any payment can compensate local inhabitants for loss of the power to determine the availability and the use of one of their most important resources.

Transit traffic in the Alps

In the case of transit traffic, no specific Alpine "resource" is actually being used. European transit traffic passes through the Alps because they stretch across the middle of the continent, separating the very important economic area of northern Italy from the rest of Europe and blocking access to the Balkans. For a long time transit traffic was completely confined to railways; since 1900, there have been seven major rail lines through the Alps. Since 1955, however, the volume of traffic on roads has been steadily increasing. While virtually no expansion or improvement of railways has taken place in the 20th century, a completely new road network with motorways, highways and many tunnels has been constructed since 1955.

This has brought fundamental changes in the valleys used by transit traffic, which are usually narrow. Traffic has steadily taken up more space in the most desirable valley locations, forcing agriculture out of these areas and contributing to an increase in the price of land, to the disadvantage of local residents. Air pollution and ceaseless noise have made life less attractive and caused environmental deterioration. Forest decline in these valleys is especially severe, and the danger of avalanches and erosion is increasing. Many people are under such stress that they no longer feel at home in their native habitat. Moreover, areas on both sides of major motorways have become desirable sites for commercial operations and services, so these valleys are becoming more heavily settled. The natives are increasingly being forced to leave. There is now an almost unbroken line of settlement on both sides of the Brenner Pass from Kufstein (in the northern Alps) to Innsbruck and from Veron (in the southern Alps) to Bozen. A similar development can be seen on both sides of the Gotthard Pass. The Alps are becoming urbanized along major transport routes and losing their typically Alpine character.

The problem is not confined only to major valleys used by transit traffic, however. It is also present in valleys heavily used for tourism, although in less pronounced form. Tourist traffic also causes severe pollution in valley ecosystems, takes up a great deal of space, and makes central locations in tourist communes much less attractive. Some places such as Serfaus in the Tyrol (not cities by any means, but rural tourist centres) have begun to construct subway systems to combat the problem of traffic. But this is too costly an approach to constitute a real solution. Extensive improvements must be made in public transportation systems between major European cities and tourist centres in the Alps to deal with this problem. Since almost all Alpine tourist centres have rail connections, this appears to be a feasible approach.

Major new construction is now being planned. Three new railway tunnels (Lötschberg, Gotthard and Brenner) will considerably increase railway transport capacity. But this will not be enough if traffic in Europe continues to increase at the rate it has in the last two decades. The new European single market is also likely to account for additional growth in the volume of traffic by 1993. The problems of Alpine transit traffic will be finally solved only when there is a new traffic policy for all of Europe which starts with ecological considerations and aims at reducing growth in the volume of traffic. n

Economically weak Alpine regions

The primary problem in the Alps, as usually perceived in the public mind, is overuse of the land. Mass tourism, transit traffic and use of water resources are at the centre of this perception. What is overlooked is that these problems are typical of some Alpine regions only, and not of the Alps generally. So-called "economically weak regions", in which the traditional economy and way of life are breaking down and not being replaced by new developments, constitute approximately 40 per cent of the total area in the Alps. These regions are located primarily in the southern French Alps, the western and eastern Italian Alps, the southern Swiss Alps (the Canton of Tessin and parts of the Canton of Graubünden), the eastern part of the eastern Austrian Alps (eastern Tyrol and large parts of upper Austria, Steiermark and Kärnten) and the western Slovenian Alps. The existence of such regions in central Europe clearly shows that modern European development has not included every area of the continent and that there are great disparities between active (developed) regions (with solid economic growth and a good population base) and passive (stagnant) regions (with declining economies and populations). These disparities, which in some cases exist on a very small scale, correspond to large-scale disparities between industrialized and developing countries.

Economically weak regions are characterized by a 60, 70 or 80 per cent drop in population over the past 100 years, a gradual decline in traditional agriculture, and no new jobs in tourism, industry or non-tourist-related services. Two factors are responsible for this. There is very little direct pressure from European urban areas to use land here; not every Alpine valley is destined to be used for tourism. The Alps are so extensive and the competition so intense that many valleys have no chance for this type of development. But another force is also at work: the native inhabitants refuse to accept innovation and new developments. In the confrontation between the modern world and the world of tradition, they attempt to preserve their traditional ways by insulating themselves from the modern world as completely as they can, and insist on living the life to which they are accustomed. Anthropologists call this attitude "kulturelle Erstarrung" (cultural rigidity).

At first it appears that this rigidity has very positive effects. Traditional Alpine agriculture continues, along with its sustainable practices that protect the environment. But problems begin to develop unnoticed, precisely because no changes are introduced, not even worthwhile and
environmentally compatible changes. Thus the conflict between traditional and modern agriculture grows over years and decades until finally there are only a few old men who farm as they always did but take care not to allow new forms of agriculture to develop. Innovation is rare. Given the "commune system" that is usually in force in these areas, innovations can only be introduced if a majority of the commune’s inhabitants vote for them. Since the majority of the farmers who remain there oppose anything new, young people willing to try new ways leave these regions. In time, a social structure develops which intensifies the climate of rigidity. It is this development that currently prohibits sensible and sustainable use of valuable agricultural resources. It will only be possible to restore sustainability when this traditional way of life breaks down completely and when traditional land use is abandoned because of death, old age or illness. Then there will be freedom to adopt new forms of agricultural land use, but only during a limited period of transition. There can only be a new beginning here as long as fields, meadows and pastures do not grow wild, roads and footpaths do not disintegrate, and houses do not deteriorate or become part of the infrastructure of tourism. In another 10-15 years at the most a new start will no longer be possible because the costs of restoring cultivable land and infrastructure will be too high. The question is whether natives of the area interested in innovation and others from outside who are also willing to introduce innovations can exploit the chance for a new start, or whether the chance will be lost, since state and communal conditions also make innovation more difficult rather than helping to promote it. This would mean losing a chance to restore and use valuable agricultural and forest resources.

A new development took place in economically weak Alpine regions in the 1980s. Small vacation homes were built everywhere, often by former property owners who had migrated from these regions to the city a generation earlier. This building boom can be explained by general social conditions in Europe. It is gradually becoming "normal" in modern consumer culture for many employees or skilled workers to have their own vacation home. In view of increasing environmental problems in major metropolitan areas, the desire to flee the cities for a pure environment during increasingly long holiday periods continues to grow.

At present, this new development is concerned solely with dwelling space and has few secondary effects. Only the local building trades have profited from it, but in modest ways, since much of the labour was done by the owners themselves. In addition, food consumed here is usually brought from home rather than being purchased locally.

It is questionable whether this development will bring improvement to these Alpine regions. Although it is rather modest in scale at present, if this form of land use increases, population in these regions will begin to grow. All current surveys and projections are based on the assumption that leisure time will be an even more important factor in Europe in the coming decades. This indicates that a further boom in the building of private vacation homes in economically weak Alpine regions is probable. But there is also a danger that this development will be one-sided. Only homes are being renovated and newly built, while agriculture is breaking down completely and practically no jobs are being created in the tourist sector. On the other hand, there is also an opportunity to use the building boom to improve agriculture and local businesses and services on a systematic basis. This, however, will require careful planning at the communal and regional levels.

Loss of cultural identity

Analyses of tradition in the Alps have shown how important cultural identity is as a factor in sustainable use of the environment. Traditional Alpine culture, with its emphasis on thinking beyond the present generation to consider the next, is breaking down as it confronts modern industrial society. It is characteristic of this process that these two worlds exist in close proximity as complete strangers with nothing in common. Either the modern world dominates, as in tourist communes, and traditional Alpine cultural values seem old-fashioned and are pushed aside (repression), or the world of tradition insulates itself from modern society and becomes more set in its traditional ways (rigidity). In both cases there are no conscious connections between the traditional and the modern in which central components of traditional and modern culture are bound together in new ways.

This is the cultural reason why sustainable use of the environment is so difficult in the Alps today. Where the values of modern society dominate, all traditional values are excluded, including those relating to sustainable use of nature and the knowledge that nature can never be completely dominated by technology. Instead, all modern values are embraced, including attitudes in which nature is regarded merely as a raw material, and environmental problems simply as technical difficulties which can be solved by large-scale use of technology if necessary. And where the traditional world dominates, existing sustainable land use practices are undermined because traditional forms of agriculture (very small operations, many small plots, no quality production) are no longer competitive. They appear to be completely unable to survive and their total breakdown becomes merely a question of time. Rarely, if ever, is there a chance in either situation to combine the positive values of the past (above all knowledge of sustainable use of the environment) with the positive features of the present (greater freedom of competition) in such a way that the result would be a viable new culture with a satisfactory quality of life.

In the second half of the 1980s, organizations representing cultural, tourist and agricultural interests were formed in opposition to current trends. These organizations deliberately advocate sustainable development and a strengthening of cultural identity. The Austrian Hans Haid has spoken of "the greatest protest movement in the Alps since the Peasants’ War". There is a hope that these initial steps will result in a major attempt to build a new cultural self-awareness committed to sustainable use of the environment.

Environmental problems in the Alps

Our studies of pre-industrial society have shown that human life and economic activity in the Alps were based on farming. Natural resources were not directly available for use, however; man first had to make the landscape cultivable in order to live in the Alps and use Alpine resources. But since cultivable land is not inherently ecologically stable, man must give it the stability necessary to prevent natural disasters from making life impossible. It became apparent that the correct manner of using natural resources–the proper mean between overuse and underuse–is very decisive in determining whether cultivated land remains stable or not.

For these reasons "environmental destruction" in the Alps today results not only from overuse of available resources, as is often assumed, but also from underuse, when land which was once cultivated is allowed to lie fallow.

This is linked to the problem of restricting nature protection and environmental protection to nature reserves, which is an insufficient measure. In the first place, national parks and nature reserves today are not natural landscapes; their ecology has been greatly influenced by man. Making them protected areas and limiting or completely forbidding their use does not always seem sensible from an ecological point of view. Second, protected areas in the Alps are small and do not represent the diversity of Alpine ecosystems. Concentrating environmental protection in these small areas would cause other unprotected areas to be heavily overused and destroyed more quickly. Environmental protection would thus be counterproductive because many valuable ecosystems and biotopes are in unprotected areas. Environmental protection in the Alps must be formulated and implemented with regard to all ecosystems if it is to be effective. Third, the creation of national parks –one each in Germany, Switzerland and Yugoslavia, two in Italy, and three in France–is a political process which must take account of many different interests. Environmental protection is often not a decisive factor. Many protected areas at the regional level today were created mainly for purposes relating to tourism, which helps promote economic weakness in these regions. For all these reasons it would be unfortunate if environmental protection were to be restricted to or concentrated in existing protected areas. Therefore, the international initiative launched by environmentalists to create another national park in the Mont Blanc region should be rejected. The danger is too great that it will become a politically inspired project primarily of benefit to voters living in urban areas.

The problems of underuse are associated with wild growth and forest growth in places that are no longer used or used only very extensively. Underuse is usually linked to a decline in the variety of species and more frequent occurrence of avalanches and erosion on steep surfaces, thus increasing the danger of natural disasters. These developments can be found in many areas in economically weak Alpine regions. But they also occur in tourist centres because here only selected areas are devoted to very intensive modern forms of use. The remaining areas are virtually unused and deteriorate.

By contrast, the problems of overuse are found primarily in favourable and centrally located areas or parts of larger regions, i.e. on wide valley floors and lower mountain slopes. Farming and tourism, as well as the general pressure of settlement and the oversettlement of entire valley floors, are all causes of overuse. Water resources management, industry and transit traffic also contribute to overuse of resources.

The problem of air pollution in Europe is being superimposed on both these developments. This further weakens the ability of Alpine ecosystems to regenerate.

The consequences of these problems are a decline in the diversity of traditional plant societies (species loss), a disappearance of typical small-scale landscapes, a diminished ability of various ecosystems to regenerate, and less ecological stability. These developments are accompanied by the fundamental danger of more frequent natural disasters. Yet given the enormous complexity of the natural and social factors involved, it is fundamentally impossible to calculate precisely the increase in danger and predict the next major catastrophe. The "catastrophic summer" of 1987 with its many floods, mud flows, and a major landslide in Veltlin made it clear, however, that all the technology we can employ to prevent natural disasters is only of minor importance and that technology will not become the master of nature in the Alps. Sustainable use of nature and measures to prevent disasters are of the utmost importance. n

The starting point: enhancement of Alpine resources

The Alps are the world’s best known and most precisely scientifically studied mountain system. Recently, very specific suggestions and projects have been formulated for new, alternative and positive types of development in the Alps. Many encouraging initial steps have been taken in virtually every Alpine area: agriculture, forestry, energy use, industry, tourism, transport and environmental protection. Initiated by independent groups, government representatives and scientists, these steps cannot be presented in detail here. They all aim in approximately the same direction, however, and will be characterized in what follows.

Human intervention has completely transformed the ecology of the Alps. They are neither a natural nor a near-natural landscape, but an anthropogenically shaped cultural landscape. This cultural landscape is the foundation of all human life and economic activity there. If the Alps are to have a viable future, the first and foremost task must be responsible management of this landscape, including a commitment to its ecological stability, which will first have to be purposely and laboriously restored in the case of each ecosystem.

The easiest and most effective way to achieve this is through farming and forestry practices adapted to environmental conditions on a small scale. Renewal of ecological stability must be just as important as the tasks of production (sustainable use). Modern forms of land use– tourism, water resources management, industry, labour, transport–must be conducted in such a way that they do not overstrain and destroy ecological stability. On the contrary, their managers must feel responsible for ecological stability and cooperate closely with the farming and forestry sectors to help maintain it. Sustainable use of the Alpine environment can be most sensibly carried out in this way. Theoretically, of course, farming and forestry could be completely given up (they are in any case no longer competitive in today’s economic climate), and the job of maintaining the ecological stability of the cultural landscape left to modern-day land users alone. There are three arguments against this on principle, however.

a) Agriculture and forestry can make use of the vast and valuable natural resources in the Alps. Failure to use the Alps for these purposes would be a waste, even though there are economic difficulties at present. Moreover, only if the Alps are used for agriculture and forestry can the great variety of vegetation and the small-scale, highly diverse character of Alpine ecosystems be maintained.

b) Giving up agriculture and forestry in the Alps would represent a complete break with tradition and base all economic activity on a new foundation lacking in tradition. Extremely valuable knowledge of how to deal with nature, gained through experience in farming and very seldom put down in writing, would be lost. There would also be a very great danger that the significance of ecological stability in the cultural landscape would not be recognized by those engaged in modern forms of land use.

c) The disappearance of agriculture and forestry in the Alps would mean the loss of one aspect of European diversity