Regional Mountain Conference

Peatlands are priority conservation and restoration areas due to their high biodiversity and carbon storage. In the Alpine foothills of Europe, however, many peatlands have been drained for agriculture and peat extraction. Recent EU Nature Restoration targets put pressure on the need for restoration and rewetting measures in agricultural peatlands. At the same time, research has highlighted the necessity of including relational aspects of nature(s) in restoration policies. 

To show how these relational aspects are practiced, the paper provides an empirical case study of the human-nature relationships and environmental values found in land-users in the Oichtenriede, in Salzburgerland in the Austrian Alps. The Oichtenriede is a drained peatland characterized by diverse land use practices, ranging from Natura 2000 protected Streuwiesen (litter meadows) to more intensive grassland areas and forestry. 

Through walking interviews with land-users (farmers, a conservation manager, a hunter, a drainage company) in the Oichtenriede, the study elicits place-based relationships and values. Our analysis focuses on the co-constitution of human-nature relationships and environmental values as shaping, enabling and limiting each other. These processes lead to synergies and tensions in farming and conservation practices. 

Our results show that land-users do not hold static positions (e.g. a farmer as a steward or a manager) but rather move through different configurations of human-nature relationships and mobilize a plurality of values in different situations. The mobilization of these values leads to diverse societal configurations with broader societal implications, for example with actors supporting or opposing new rewetting measures or plural views of the ‘ideal landscape’ that should be maintained. Moreover, farmers described partnership-oriented relationships that could not be practiced due to inflexible policy requirements such as the mowing regime. We reflect on how conservation policies can unintentionally constrain relational farming practices on the ground, but discuss how alternative approaches can hold the potential to enable more plural and context-sensitive forms of protection and restoration.