Generic Regional Development Strategies from Local Stakeholders’ Scenarios - an Alpine Village Experience

Description

The  article  discusses  the  participatory  elaboration  of  strategies  for  sustainable  regional development in an Alpine tourist region in Austria to cope with global change effects evolving locally, considering climate change, economic change as well as (local) societal change. Local stakeholders in an Alpine village in the Montafon region contributed in workshops to achieve the final results: participant teams conducted system analyses of the regional system to explore key elements of the region. Narrative scenarios  described  possible  positive  and  negative  development  trends  and  indicated  the  critical  issues controlling future development; 3D-images of landscape transition simulations show the consequences of certain  development  directions.  Alternative  development  directions  supported  the  local  stakeholders  to elaborate regional development strategies. In the end, the scientist team derived generic strategies for Alpine regions based on the locally developed strategy bundle. The article presents the intention, progress and outcome of the participatory approach and elaborates the potential to derive generic strategies from local ones and discusses the possibly occurring conflicts regarding cross-scale transfers of these local strategies. Overall, tourism was seen as a key element for future regional development, which can on the one hand derogate Alpine regions and is on the other hand threatened by climate change and diminution of landscape attractiveness. The suggested development strategies will help to cope with global change issues mitigating the negative consequences on the local society and environment.

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