06.2: Nature

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The Trient valley is marked by a steep gradient with the presence of scree, avalanche corridors and rock slides. Between these corridors, the land has been fashioned by agriculture. This method of exploiting the land has thrown up a number of structures, including mountain pastures and grazing land, forests and cultivated fields. Although today agriculture is no longer the main economy, it remains present as a secondary activity.

The abandonment of agricultural activity results in fallow land and changes to plant life. Fallow land has taken over but is impoverishing the biodiversity of these surroundings. In recent years the forest cover has increased, tending to close off visual communication between the bottom of the valley and high mountain pastures.

Mountain farming is extremely precarious. Mountain people left their farms at the end of the 20th century to go and work on the plain in new industries. There remains today a wide diversity of agricultural activities which, from high to lower altitude, range from pastures and agricultural terraces to orchards, meadows and fields in the valley bottom. Current changes in farming, particularly the trend towards consumers opting for local produce, offer scope for new possibilities.

The natural backdrop of the Trient valley is well preserved, since few development projects such as ski slopes, ski-lifts, etc, have impacted on the territory.





FURTHER INFORMATION


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 WRITTEN & GRAPHIC DOCUMENTS

 
 > Actes Vallistriensis (f)
 



 > The ecological and socio-economic consequences of land transformation in alpine regions