ID62: Social innovation in mountain areas

Abstract ID 247 | Date: 2022-09-12 16:17 – 16:34 | Type: Oral Presentation | Place: SOWI – Seminar room SR3 |

Gholam, Nicolas Michel (1); Chedid, Mabelle Ghassan (2)

As Lebanon has plunged in the duo-crisis of its financial meltdown that coincided with the spread of COVID-19 almost 2 years ago, the country has witnessed wide array of behavioural changes in the multiple facets of its society. Lebanon is the home of “Supermarketization”; post-civil war developmental strategy aimed at countering hunger by saturating the country with an excess of supermarkets by using them as liquidation channels to the flooding imports. Those strategies contributed in deteriorating the existence of local food production and destabilizing the livelihood of rural fabrics. The Alternative Food Network in Lebanon has since then struggled to make any impact on society, let alone on the GDP, except for some niche communities who can afford adopting the ethical consumerism lifestyle. By 2021, the rate of urbanization has hit 89.1% leading to the desertification of rural areas (mostly mountains), and that historical rural neglect became one of the major pillars that contributed to the downfall of October 2019.

This study aims at exploring the processes adopted by individuals and groups in rural areas, as their perception and behaviours changed within the crisis, notably in the sectors of agriculture and agro-processing food. Keeping in mind that lockdowns and worsening financial situation as the broad struggles, the research aims at exploring the drivers on a more micro level, and compare it between several types of groups (communities), and several types of producers whom each belong to a specified food category in the Lebanese Alternative Food Network. After retrieving the drivers, the research analyses the measures of adaptation that were taken to survive, while exploring the social innovations that were used in the process.

The sample consists of several rural small scale producers from different geographical areas, all working in different crafts that belong to the Lebanese Alternative Food Network. As the retrieval of information took place via semi-structured interviews; the analysis follows the Sustainable Livelihood Approach (SLA) to understand the level of impact that those social innovations have made in a holistic manner. The SLA uses the chocks and trends to understand the impact on the human, natural, financial, social and physical capital of studied samples, and allows the researcher to retrieve the needed livelihood outcomes that were influenced by the shift in paradigm.

The expected result is the description of an emerging ‘New Rurality’ that involves civil society actors, private sector, rural small scale producers, grass-root initiatives and cooperatives.

Abstract ID 895 | Date: 2022-09-12 16:34 – 16:51 | Type: Oral Presentation | Place: SOWI – Seminar room SR3 |

Villar-Argaiz, Manuel (1); Medina-Sánchez, Juan Manuel (1); López-Rodríguez, Manuel Jesús (1); Corral Arredondo, Eulogio (1); González-Olalla, Juan Manuel (1); Vilá Duplá, María (1); Zamora, Regino (1); Pérez-Martínez, Carmen (1); Ramos Rodríguez, Eloisa (1); Conde-Porcuna, José María (1); Picazo, Félix (1); Llodrá, Joana (1); Garrido Cañete, Guillermo (1); Fernández-Zambrano, Alejandra (1); Morales Baquero, Rafael (1); Camacho-Páez, José (1); Tierno De Figueroa, José Manuel (1); Sánchez Castillo, Pedro (1); Carrillo, Presentación (2); Jiménez Tejada, Pilar (1); Romero López, María Del Carmen (1); Barón López, Sergio David (1); Fernández Ferrer, Gracia (1); Abellán, Pedro (3); Jáimez Cuéllar, Pablo (4); Fernández, Pilar (5); Jiménez, Antonio (6); Quesada, Antonio (7); Barea Arco, José Miguel (8); Pérez, Flora (9); Delgado Molina, José Antonio (10); Martín Girela, María Isabel (1); Castro, Jorge (1); Barea Márquez, Andrés (1); Hódar Correa, José Antonio (1); Merino Ceballos, Manuel (11)

Citizen Science involves the innate fascination of volunteers in contributing to scientific knowledge. It is therefore an unique way that offers citizens to actively engage in the various parts of the research process: from collecting and providing the essential data to contributing to guide the flow of information from scientific forums to decision-makers and society. We here describe two citizen science initiatives in Sierra Nevada (Spain) where scientists and citizens can learn and benefit from each other. The first initiative under the name of “74 High Mountain Glacial-Lake Oases” was launched in 1998 in order to promote the research and conservation of glacial lakes. These lakes regarded as sentinels of global change are unique ecological laboratories in which scientists with the help of citizen volunteers monitor and test the effects of global stressors such as temperature, dust deposition from the Saharan desert or UV radiation, among others. Because lakes are located in difficult-to-reach locations, the help of mountaineers allows to strengthen Long-Term Monitoring Programs by contributing to gather scientific data that would otherwise be unapproachable by scientific team means. The second initiative under the name of “Ríos de Vida” (Living rivers) is a hands-on environmental education program for the promotion of scientific vocations in high school students. With their science teachers assisting, dedicated instructors guide the students in hands-on stream sampling for biological, physico-chemical and hydromorphological information, sample analyses and data interpretation. Groups of students monitor the health of river waters as they meander their way down from the most pristine sites in mountain headquarters to the more human degraded sites down the valleys. The participation of students as citizen scientists leads to a wider community engagement and implementation of sustainable freshwater management policies.

This work is part of Smart EcoMountains, the Thematic Center on Mountain Ecosystems of LifeWatch-ERIC.

Abstract ID 626 | Date: 2022-09-12 16:51 – 17:08 | Type: Oral Presentation | Place: SOWI – Seminar room SR3 |

Loreggian, Francesco (1); Bottaro, Giorgia (1); Andrighetto, Nicola (2)

Forest ownership fragmentation connected to inheritance rules induces land abandonment and may constitute an obstacle to the sustainable and active forest management, which would ensure the optimal provision of forest ecosystem services. In rural mountain areas, this is one of the issues that impact on the socio-economic dimension, provoking land value loss and fostering a vicious cycle that definitively deplete mountain rural communities. From many countries’ experiences, one of the tools to reduce this problem is the establishment of forest owners’ associative models, but also other solutions resulting from social innovation can contribute.

To increase societal capacity to manage forest landscapes as social-ecological systems, a suite of institutional mechanisms – namely policies, formal organizations, and governance networks – will likely be necessary (Folke et al., 2016). Innovation can be a process specifically developed within and towards institutions, that is the case of institutional innovation, however within an innovation system there are relationships between different types of innovation, and these evolve over time (Buttoud et al., 2011). Social innovation involves institutions: they can be promoters and endorse it, or they can be involved as actors, internal or external to organizational models that are first developed by innovation process driven by other sources.

This study aims to examine the different organizational models experienced in Italian mountain regions, to provide an updated state of the art and to assess their main challenges and the innovative solutions they’re adopting to overcome the issues of forest fragmentation.

We present an analysis of national and regional legislation and some case studies of innovative organizational solutions from the Italian mountain regions. The results reveal that several laws and regulations for addressing this topic were approved so far in Italy, but the Regions legislate on the issue without any form of coordination, and this led to the emergence of a range of different associative models. While some of them, supported by laws and incentives, are mere organizational solutions, others, like community cooperatives, appear as the result of social innovation processes. These different models are described and categorized displaying their features and we’ll present an inventory of the officially registered organizations operating in the Italian mountains within these models’ categories. Our analysis concludes that regional regulations need to be coordinated, mutually sharing the lessons learned. Moreover, cooperative models resulting from social innovation, involving many actors from the local communities, can be recognized and supported by policy-makers and local administrations.

Abstract ID 575 | Date: 2022-09-12 17:08 – 17:15 | Type: Oral Presentation | Place: SOWI – Seminar room SR3 |

Grison, Jean-Baptiste (1); Pachoud, Carine (1); Koop, Kirsten (1); Hirczak, Maud (2); Gros-Balthazard, Marjolaine (1); Hakimi-Pradels, Nassima (1)

Faced with the challenge of global change, research on social innovations is multiplying in Europe and North America. In the gaps left by institutions, social innovations highlight the capacity of individuals and groups to develop alternative projects and practices that promote socio-ecological transitions toward sustainability, whether in terms of food, energy, economics or ecology. In some territories, social innovation networks are developing.

In this contribution, we suppose that the weaving of links between holders of alternative projects and their networking can considerably foster the transformation of territories toward sustainability. Relying on the results of a vast study on social innovations in mountain territories in the Auvergne-Rhône Alpes region, carried out within the Labex research programme “Innovations and transitions in mountain territories” of the University of Grenoble Alpes (2018-2024), we will discuss this hypothesis. We will give particular insights into the case of the central part of the Bauges massif, in the French Alps, while comparing it to the situation of other territories we have studied. This territory, made up of 14 municipalities, is not known for its strong dynamics of alternative activities or transition. However, a real dynamic of social innovations has gradually been emerging. How has this territory, with its strong identity but far from institutional centres, become a space for the development of social innovations? How are these innovations able to transform the territorial trajectory towards sustainability?

To answer these questions, we use a conceptual framework stemming from social geography, sustainability transitions studies and territorial development theories we have been elaborating on behalf of this research programme. It allows for analyzing territorialized network dynamics of social innovations and territorial transformations (through the inventory of initiatives, the geo-history of the territory, the types and functions of the networks) as well as a transdisciplinary approach (participative workshops between researchers and actors to identify the issues) are mobilised.

The first findings allow us to say that the fabric of social innovations in the Bauges, although still not very well developed, has already achieved a high level of visibility, through the strong networking of its actors. We will show that one of the key issues for a real transformation lies in overcoming the divisions between the categories of actors (former residents, actors carrying alternative initiatives, etc.).