The impact of agriculture on the European Alps

Vanishing world, disappearing species

Traditional Alpine farming has undergone a radical change during the last 50 years. There has been widespread abandonment of unfavourable farming locations, whilst at the same time agriculture in favourable areas has intensified.

Both trends have led to a decrease in species and community diversity.

Intensive agriculture occurs ever more frequently in broad valleys and on easily accessible slopes. Negative impacts are due to the massive use of fertilizers, grading and drainage.

This kind of agriculture results in homogenized areas.

The traditional labour-intensive farming areas, where different agricultural products were produced over small surfaces, are being wiped off the map as the older generations of farmers disappear and more and more alpine pastures are being abandoned.

In the upper reaches, a small number of big farms with very large numbers of cattle convert mountain meadows and pastures into heavily fertilized ‘green deserts’.

This often entails a loss of biodiversity, as species-rich meadows are replaced by a thick bush cover and eventually, completely erased by the return of the forest.

The general trend is leading to larger, intensive farms on the valley floors with very extensive cattle operations in favourable mountain areas and fallows or bush in between.