and services are easily achievable actions. Climate change may exacerbate debates
between conservation and water extraction even in the mountains with water surplus (Beniston 2012).
1.3.3 Tourism and Sport Pressures
In many mountain valleys around the world, tourism is growing as an economic
component replacing productive or extractive activities (Nyaupane et al. 2014).
Tourism development has led to separation into different categories such as ecotourism, sustainable tourism, wildlife tourism, nature-based tourism, heritage
tourism and cultural tourism (Rotherham 2013). Each of these categories has their
own idiosyncrasy, which should be taken into account in the high mountain conservation planning.
Nature reserves become a reclaim for the tourism sector. Declaration of new
protection areas sometimes includes among their benefits that they will favor this
economic field. Handling visitor’s affluence may become a primary issue for some
natural reserves of relatively reduced size or without possibility to diversify visitors
towards different zones. Access to mountain reserves usually follows some main
routes that become both a constraint and an opportunity for managing the number
of visitors. To traditional mountaineers, urban inhabitants on holidays and outdoor
long-distance sports practitioners provide new challenges to conservation. An
accepted self-responsibility for the risk that mountains constitute, which mountaineers and people working in the mountains had, is being replaced by a safety
delegation to the community. This may increase the gap between visitors and locals.
To an increasing degree, rural landscapes are being transformed into sites for
leisure. Even though tourism is welcomed as a rescue plan of rural mountain
economies in decline, it may at the same time be associated with unwanted changes.
In the cases in which the nature of these landscapes is labeled as wilderness by
conservationists and tourist industry alike, inhabitants of local communities may
perceive that the social and cultural aspects of the landscape they strongly identify
with are being disregarded (Oian 2013). This applies, for instance, to hunting and
angling in nature reserves and neighbouring areas for animal population control or
leisure but not for local consumption.
Climate change is modifying conditions at high altitudes, changing the spatial
distribution of risk and accessibility. Global factors cannot be mitigated locally but
improved management practices that aid local conservation and development in this
high mountain ecosystem are required (Garrard et al. 2016). At lower altitudes
within large ranges, a shift from traditional practices to a more diversified blend of
agropastoralism, tourism services, and cash-crop production may become adaptive
for local economies (Konchar et al. 2015). Conservation must find its place within
this changing dynamics. On the other hand, in mountain ranges supporting a winter
snow industry, changes in snow deposition and snowpack persistence may result in
new demands upon preserved areas, enhancing social debates about conservation
16
J. Catalan et al.
between conservation and water extraction even in the mountains with water surplus (Beniston 2012).
1.3.3 Tourism and Sport Pressures
In many mountain valleys around the world, tourism is growing as an economic
component replacing productive or extractive activities (Nyaupane et al. 2014).
Tourism development has led to separation into different categories such as ecotourism, sustainable tourism, wildlife tourism, nature-based tourism, heritage
tourism and cultural tourism (Rotherham 2013). Each of these categories has their
own idiosyncrasy, which should be taken into account in the high mountain conservation planning.
Nature reserves become a reclaim for the tourism sector. Declaration of new
protection areas sometimes includes among their benefits that they will favor this
economic field. Handling visitor’s affluence may become a primary issue for some
natural reserves of relatively reduced size or without possibility to diversify visitors
towards different zones. Access to mountain reserves usually follows some main
routes that become both a constraint and an opportunity for managing the number
of visitors. To traditional mountaineers, urban inhabitants on holidays and outdoor
long-distance sports practitioners provide new challenges to conservation. An
accepted self-responsibility for the risk that mountains constitute, which mountaineers and people working in the mountains had, is being replaced by a safety
delegation to the community. This may increase the gap between visitors and locals.
To an increasing degree, rural landscapes are being transformed into sites for
leisure. Even though tourism is welcomed as a rescue plan of rural mountain
economies in decline, it may at the same time be associated with unwanted changes.
In the cases in which the nature of these landscapes is labeled as wilderness by
conservationists and tourist industry alike, inhabitants of local communities may
perceive that the social and cultural aspects of the landscape they strongly identify
with are being disregarded (Oian 2013). This applies, for instance, to hunting and
angling in nature reserves and neighbouring areas for animal population control or
leisure but not for local consumption.
Climate change is modifying conditions at high altitudes, changing the spatial
distribution of risk and accessibility. Global factors cannot be mitigated locally but
improved management practices that aid local conservation and development in this
high mountain ecosystem are required (Garrard et al. 2016). At lower altitudes
within large ranges, a shift from traditional practices to a more diversified blend of
agropastoralism, tourism services, and cash-crop production may become adaptive
for local economies (Konchar et al. 2015). Conservation must find its place within
this changing dynamics. On the other hand, in mountain ranges supporting a winter
snow industry, changes in snow deposition and snowpack persistence may result in
new demands upon preserved areas, enhancing social debates about conservation
16
J. Catalan et al.