Using Oral History and Forest Management Plans to Reconstruct Traditional Non-Timber Forest Uses in the Swiss Rhone Valley (Valais) Since the Late Nineteenth Century

Abstract

Changes in forest use are considered as a potential key driver for recently observed changing forest dynamics in the pine forest belt of the upper Rhone valley (Canton of Valais, Switzerland). In this region, traditional non-timber forest uses, such as forest litter harvesting and wood pasture, were practised until the second half of the twentieth century. The practice of traditional non-timber forest uses led to specific environmental conditions which favoured pine as a pioneer species. With the abandonment of these practices the pine was subjected to increased competition and largely replaced by deciduous trees. In this study, the history of traditional non-timber forest uses was reconstructed by combining the analysis of forest management plans and the results from oral history interviews. The forest management plans represent the view of the forest administration whereas the narratives obtained from oral history interviews allow putting the traditional non-timber forest uses into the context of people's daily life. The different characteristics of the two source types are illustrated with two regional case studies. Different socioeconomic and political drivers were identified (changes in non-farming employment, changes in demand for forest products, access to substitute products, regulations), which led to the abandonment of traditional non-timber forest uses in the Valais. The combination of forest management plans and oral history leads to a comprehensive picture of the history and significance of traditional non-timber forest uses. Our findings confirm that information on traditional non-timber forest uses is crucial for an understanding of present day dynamics in the pine forest ecosystems of the Valais.

The History of the Establishment and Management Philosophies of the Portuguese Protected Areas: Combining Written Records and Oral History

“…Also, details concerning historical events such as why and how they happened were occasionally absent from the literature, but could be created through the interviews (Fogerty 2001). In spite of these limitations, this study reinforces the views of previous authors that the written records and oral history interviews were both useful sources of information (Gimmi and Burgi 2007;Daley and others 2008), and its simultaneous use enabled greater insight into the establishment and management philosophies that guided the history of the Portuguese PAs.…”

“…As mentioned by other authors, the oral history interviews were restricted to the informant's ability to remember (Gimmi and Burgi 2007;Riley and Harvey 2007). For example, in some cases, the exact details and dating of historical events were difficult for the informants to recall and had to be checked in the written accounts.…”

“…This method has also been used in combination with other sources of information. Examples include the integration of aerial photography and satellite image with oral history and socio-economic surveys to assess forest and land cover in Laos (Thongmanivong and others 2005), the use of oral history in combination with historical, linguistic and ecological sources to investigate the history of the relationships of human communities with the landscape in Serengeti (Shelter 2007), the combination of oral history interviews and forest management plans to reconstruct the history of forest use in the Swiss Rhone Valley (Gimmi and Burgi 2007) and the use of oral history and archival sources to investigate the history of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia (Daley and others 2008).…”

A century of logging and forestry in a reindeer herding area in northern Sweden

“…The historical records, forest inventories including maps and yearly management data, used in this study are generally of good quality and they provide detailed data on the forest structure relatively far back in time to a more detailed level than any other sources or methods can provide. These types of sources have been used for different purposes in many similar studies and have been found to be consistent and reliable for temporal interpretations of forest change (Ö stlund et al, 1997;Burgi, 1999;Axelsson and Ö stlund, 2001;Gimmi and Burgi, 2007;Gimmi et al, 2008). When using this kind of historical records it is important to consider that the forest management ideas have profoundly changed during the 20th Century and so have the forests.…”

Land-use and climate change effects in forest compositional trajectories in a dry Central-Alpine valley

“…in the valley bottom to the upper tree line at about 2 400 m a.s.l. These forests were chosen due to the excellent historical source availability, especially forest management plans which are a valuable source for reconstructing historic forest conditions and forest uses (Bürgi, 1999;Gimmi and Bürgi, 2007;Gimmi et al, 2009). …”