Special Issue "Successful Agricultural and Socioeconomic Transformation in Mountain Areas"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Thomas Streifeneder
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute for Regional Development, EURAC Research, 39100 Bolzano, Italy
Interests: economic geography; agricultural and socioeconomic development in mountain areas; transformation processes in rural areas; agritourism; literary geography; spatial literary studies
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Dr. Christian Hoffmann
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
The Eurac Research Institute for Regional Development, 39100 Bozen, Südtirol, Italy
Interests: agricultural and forestry economics; economic transition processes in rural mountain areas; rural value-added chains; rural urban relationships; circular economy; statistics
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The future of mountain regions strongly depends on what happens outside the mountain ranges; local solutions must be implemented. Most challenges, such as over-tourism, agricultural policies and mobility, are due to processes and developments that originate from the outside. Considering geographic interrelationships is crucial for understanding cause and effect. Which developments will drive the future of mountain regions? What effectively do stakeholders and decision makers have to do to improve sustainability? What goal-oriented and implementable information do they need in order to realise socio-ecological transformations?

Much scientific information is available but not considered, because of it being too abstract, not commonly developed, not place-based and relevant and/or simply not addressing the specific problems of the inhabitants and locals. How can we overcome this situation? What hinders the implementation of socio-ecological developments? How did municipalities and regions succeed to implement resilient and smart solutions? Which politics and collaborative processes do we need in order to successfully and effectively change processes? Many promising initiatives show that mountain regions are pioneers for a smart and more sustainable future. What are their success factors and narratives that may positively influence others?

These are some questions that the Special Issue intends to present and discuss. Contributions are welcome, but not limited to, the works presenting implemented projects and activities in the framework of smart and socio-ecological transformations, dealing with local/community and regional development, governance and political sciences.

Dr. Thomas Streifeneder
Dr. Christian Hoffmann
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Politics and decision-making processes
  • Social innovation
  • Climate change adaptation and mitigation
  • Circular economy and biological economy
  • Smart villages
  • Inclusive and integrative planning

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

Article
Territorialization of Public Action and Mountain Pastoral Areas—Case Study of the Territorial Pastoral Plans of the Rhône-Alpes Region, France
Sustainability 2021, 13(14), 8014; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13148014 - 18 Jul 2021
Viewed by 422
Abstract
Territorialization aims at improving the effectiveness of public action by adapting to local contexts and including a wide diversity of actors. In the 2000s, the French local authorities, with the support of the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), launched more transversal [...] Read more.
Territorialization aims at improving the effectiveness of public action by adapting to local contexts and including a wide diversity of actors. In the 2000s, the French local authorities, with the support of the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), launched more transversal and bottom-up policies on the development of mountain pastoral territories in order to counter national and European sectoral and top-down policies. This article focuses on the Territorial Pastoral Plans (TPPs), a policy of the Rhône-Alpes region, which funds projects defined collaboratively between multiple actors in pastoral territories. The objective is to shed the light on the implementation modalities of the TPPs, and to understand the strengths and weaknesses of this policy in terms of governance to respond to the sustainability challenges of the Rhône-Alpine pastoral territories. A document analysis was achieved and interviews were conducted with nine key actors from four pastoral territories. Results showed that awareness-raising and mediation projects are becoming increasingly important because of the growing conflicts linked to the multi-purpose use of these lands and to wolf predation. Moreover, the integration of environmental actors allows better consideration of ecology in projects. However, the current budgetary restrictions limit their capacity of action within the policy. Full article
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