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Descriptions of the Alps in the press: a new approach for investigating landscape features

The GIS Alpes-du-Nord, a joint scientific venture involving several research and local development bodies in the northern French Alps, has launched a R & D programme to gain knowledge on alpine agriculture, while developing management methods to assist alpine farmers and their development partners (Box 1). Initially, only the production functions of agriculture were targeted. Since 1995, however, other functions have also been taken into account, including the management of mountain together with protection and improvement of the mountain environment. Three complementary research projects were launched to address these new objectives and help local farmers and decision-makers evaluate the ability of alpine agriculture to meet the expectations of local residents as well as those of city dwellers and tourists: (1) investigations to better understand social expectations, particularly regarding landscapes; (2) investigations to define the mountain environment in all of its diversity as perceived by different users, particularly through descriptions of different landscape units within the alpine environment; (3) investigations to highlight the extent to which different components of the agricultural area fulfil people’s expectations. The article presents the results of these investigations, which are part of a 15-year research programme to assess the ability of mountain grasslands to meet various agricultural and environmental objectives (Box 2). Social expectations concerning mountain landscapes were studied through enquiries conducted over several years. The first stage involved analysing descriptions of mountains in the general and local press, and in tourist guides. We tried to identify mountain landscape features that were referred to and descriptors associated with these features. Our analysis was based on a sample of 40 articles from, in equal proportions, four sources representing the main approaches to the alpine environment: extracts from regional tourist guides, magazine articles on specific alpine regions, booklets describing walking tours, regional articles on agriculture and landscape. The first step involved listing the topics and landscape features described in these different sources (farming activities, local culture, sports, nature, buildings, etc.). An analysis of terminology then highlighted four types of areas: undifferentiated area, area viewed as wilderness, area considered as farmland, and inhabited area. Wilderness was more frequently mentioned than farmland and inhabited areas (Table 4, Figure 1). Agricultural area was characterised by descriptors such as `green’, `alpine grassland’, `flower-covered’, `scented’, `well kept’, etc. In particular, attributes used to describe grasslands enabled us to develop a visual system describing their condition and changes throughout the year (Table 5, Figure 2). Ten types of permanent grasslands cut for hay were then characterised using this description system to assess their ability to meet user’s expectations. A landscape-evolution calendar was then produced for each grassland type. Two such calendars are shown in Figure 3. Our grassland landscape description may serve as a focus in discussions between parties with different viewpoints and expectations, and thus contribute to the emergence of collective projects by helping to produce and validate analyses on various ways grasslands meet (more or less satisfactorily) user’s expectations.