A Sustainable Tourism Paradigm: Opportunities and Limits for Forest Landscape Planning

The promotion of sustainable tourism models has been widely debate

Main drivers of the evolution of grazing in the alpine area of Valli del Leno (Trentino, Northern Italy) during the last two centuries: natural resources, labour and investments

In the Alps as in many mountain areas, livestock farming has constituted an important source of income, especially since the Middle Ages. The importance of livestock farming within the Alpine economy has changed over time due to the dynamics of supply and demand combined with evolving environmental, technological and institutional constraints. This paper focuses on the latter aspect and attempts to reconstruct how the relative importance of the production factors of land, labour and capital changed throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in a mountainous area of eastern Trentino. The underlying objective of the investigation is to provide a micro-level empirical basis for hypotheses advanced in the literature regarding the evolution of a crucial sector in the Alpine economy, drawing attention to the long-term role of exogenous and endogenous factors as well as elements of continuity and change. The work is grounded in multiple sources drawn from local archives and official statistics. It demonstrates the flexibility of local communities in managing to sustainably utilize local resources over several periods.En muchas zonas de montaña la ganadería ha constituido, a partir de la Edad Media, una fuente importante de recursos económicos. La trasformación que ha habido del peso relativo de la ganadería en la economía alpina ha sido fruto de una combinación de dinámicas, por un lado concernientes a la demanda, y, por otro, de la oferta, con los cambios introducidos por los vínculos normativos medioambientales, tecnológicos e institucionales de dicha actividad. En nuestro estudio nos centramos en este último aspecto, tratando de reconstruir el cambio que ha tenido lugar en el curso de los siglos xix y xx del peso relativo de los factores de producción tierra, trabajo y capital en una zona montañosa del Trentino oriental. El objetivo principal de nuestra investigación es el de proporcionar una base empírica, en microperspectiva, a las hipótesis avanzadas en la literatura en mérito a la evolución de un sector crucial de la economía alpina, mostrando cuál ha sido a lo largo del tiempo el rol de los factores exógenos y de los endógenos y subrayando elementos de continuidad y factores de transformación

Agricultural Cooperatives in the County of Trento (Italy): Economic, Organizational and Legal Perspectives

At present, agricultural cooperatives, like all cooperatives, are faced with many challenges. They are questioned about their organizational and management framework, their relations with local communities and with the market. In Italy, there is an ongoing debate relating to how cooperatives at large should or are supposed to evolve in a context in which the market pressure seems to overcome the traditional characteristics of the cooperative movement (mutuality, solidarity, the "one head one vote" principle, and so on). How to adequately balance the innovation thrust and the cooperative principles? How can agricultural cooperatives develop in the face of the 'ever overwhelming market forces? Is the legal framework provided for cooperatives still competitive? By taking into account the long-rooted experience of agricultural cooperatives in the County of Trento, the authors intend to analyze the main economic, organizational and legal problems affecting these cooperatives, On examining these problems, the article also intends to bring about some proposals and recommendations for the future developments of agricultural cooperatives

Payment For Forest Environmental Services: A Metta-analysis of Successful Elements

The forest is an ecosystem that can produce environmental services from which individuals benefit. In recent decades, the interest in these services has significantly increased and changed to meet new needs. The demand for wood has gradually become integrated into the demand for new products and services related to landscape use and recreational activities. These new products and services are defined as Non-Wood Forest Products and Services (NWFP&SSs). With this interest in services and products associated with the recreational use of forests and forest tourism, a possibility and in certain cases a need exists to introduce a system of payment for these services. The purpose of such a payment system is to respond to this demand and to promote the sustainable development and management of forests as well as diversify and increase the income of the community whose economy is based directly on forest resources. However, the transformation of forest environmental goods and services into commercial products and services is not straightforward. The transformation depends on endogenous and exogenous factors related to the forest system. Problematically, NWFP&Ss are frequently viewed as public goods. From this standpoint, they are considered free of cost to users. Therefore, to introduce a payment mechanism is difficult. However, this paper proposes to collect information on what factors can help to transform these e externalities into sources of income for people living near the forests

Climate change and variations in mountain pasture values in the central-eastern Italian Alps in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

This study investigates variations in pasture lease rents during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in a sector of the Italian Alps and how these correlate with climate changes. Analysis of the rents in the three data sets clearly demonstrates a sharp increase over the period considered, which can generally be ascribed to increased human pressure following population growth during the same period. Oscillations in the values obtained for fifty-year periods between the last half of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth suggest a strong connection with environmental and climatic factors. Increases or decreases in temperature seem to have a less marked and less direct effect on the values of grazing lands close to the upper limit of vegetation, while socio-economic and infrastructural signals impinge significantly on climate signals on the grazing lands at lower altitudes

Uomo e montagna tra economia tradizionale e cambiamenti climatici: il caso del Pasubio tra XVIII e XX secolo

Upland population levels are strongly correlated to environmental dynamics such as morphology, exposure and climate. A temperature fall leads to a shortening of the plant growth season, which can lead to lower pasture productivity and thus livestock can spend shorter periods in the mountains. The aim of this research is to correlate natural climate constraints with variation in the grasslands value in a selection of pastures located between 1100 and 1800 m in the Pasubio Massif (Italian Southern Alps, Trento). The correlation of this trend (derived from historical documents) with climatic oscillations in the same area derived from speleothems reveals that the variation in upland value was strictly linked to temperature and climate variation

The development of forest accounting in the province of Trento (Italy)

National accounting Green accounting Market functions valuation Non-market functions valuation

Should carbon issues modify agri-environmental support to mountain grazing? A case study in the Italian Alps

The increasing importance of the carbon sequestration issue calls the researchers to investigate if the agri-environmental support (AES) to extensive mountain grazing granted under Regulations 2078/92, 1257/99 and 1698/2005 is still efficient. AES may have contributed to the maintenance of low carbon stocks in extensive grazing areas, which might otherwise have been abandoned and revegetated by species that assist carbon sequestration. We evaluate benefits and costs of supporting the maintenance of pastureland through cattle grazing in an Italian Alpine pasture for 2004. We focus on three non-commodity outputs of Alpine grazing –landscape-recreation amenities, carbon sequestration and contribution to economic vitality of the area- and three groups of agents: visitors, local community and EU households. The efficiency of supporting mountain grazing is demonstrated by a net benefit of euro 228,613. Landscape-recreational benefits are the key variable, as their value (euro 205,377) is large enough to justify the grazing activity and the related support. The value of carbon sequestration achievable with reforestation (euro 62,491) could not compensate the loss in tourism benefits. Net beneficiaries of the agri-environmental policy are not the farmers but the visitors and the local community. Transforming of the intangible goods (both landscape-recreational amenities and carbon sequestration) into tangible ones would favour the local community. The overall convenience of supporting the maintenance of Alpine pastureland through cattle grazing depends on the number and the types of benefits and costs we consider. When a complete evaluation of all the benefit and cost flow is impossible or when an aspect, previously considered as irrelevant, suddenly increases its importance (such in the case of carbon sequestration), an approach inspired by the precautionary principle is absolutely necessary and wise

Should carbon issues modify agri-environmental support to mountain grazing? A case study in the Italian Alps

The increasing importance of the carbon sequestration issue calls the researchers to investigate if the agri-environmental support (AES) to extensive mountain grazing granted under Regulations 2078/92, 1257/99 and 1698/2005 is still efficient. AES may have contributed to the maintenance of low carbon stocks in extensive grazing areas, which might otherwise have been abandoned and revegetated by species that assist carbon sequestration. We evaluate benefits and costs of supporting the maintenance of pastureland through cattle grazing in an Italian Alpine pasture for 2004. We focus on three non-commodity outputs of Alpine grazing –landscape-recreation amenities, carbon sequestration and contribution to economic vitality of the area- and three groups of agents: visitors, local community and EU households. The efficiency of supporting mountain grazing is demonstrated by a net benefit of euro 228,613. Landscape-recreational benefits are the key variable, as their value (euro 205,377) is large enough to justify the grazing activity and the related support. The value of carbon sequestration achievable with reforestation (euro 62,491) could not compensate the loss in tourism benefits. Net beneficiaries of the agri-environmental policy are not the farmers but the visitors and the local community. Transforming of the intangible goods (both landscape-recreational amenities and carbon sequestration) into tangible ones would favour the local community. The overall convenience of supporting the maintenance of Alpine pastureland through cattle grazing depends on the number and the types of benefits and costs we consider. When a complete evaluation of all the benefit and cost flow is impossible or when an aspect, previously considered as irrelevant, suddenly increases its importance (such in the case of carbon sequestration), an approach inspired by the precautionary principle is absolutely necessary and wise.agri-environmental support, mountain grazing, carbon sequestration, Environmental Economics and Policy,