Elisabeth Tauber from Unibz talks about structural and systemic approaches to farmers and pasture cultures in the region of Trentino-South Tyrol from an ecological anthropology perspective. Referring to Cole & Wolf’s classic The Hidden Frontier and Robert Netting’s work on Smallholders, she looks at the current situation in which agricultural practice comes into conflict with new phenomena of the presence of large predators. The vehement resistance to the return of large predators reveals, on closer inspection, a deeper problem. It shows how regional agriculture has become the biggest biodiversity killer in the region over the past 50 years due to the structural shift from subsistence farming to industrial production with a focus on monoculture or exclusive dairy production. In this context, the large predatory animal takes on a symbolic role that refers to this very conflict.
Marc Zebisch from Eurac is currently working in a project in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan on the impact of climate change on the interactions between snow leopard and communities. The project Vanishing Treasures is coordinated by UNEP. He presented first results from a workshop with local NGOs. In this Central Asia Region there is a current problem of overgrazing and a high livestock density which is mainly driven by the fact that local communities and herdsman are using livestock as a saving option to secure money which mainly mal migrant labour forces earn in Russia and sent back remittances.
The high number of livestock is competing with the prey of the snow leopard already. With climate change, livestock farmers might be forced to move their herds higher up into the mountains which will increase the conflict with the habitat of the snow leopard and increase the fodder conflict with its prey.
