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Nature Parks: Valorising Regional Potential—The Gruyère Pays-d’Enhaut Regional Nature Park (Fribourg/Vaud, Switzerland)

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Responses to Geographical Marginality and Marginalization

Part of the book series: Perspectives on Geographical Marginality ((PGEO,volume 5))

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Abstract

Since the Neolithic, nature has been positioned second to human needs and wishes. While in early periods with simple technologies, human impacts remained relatively modest, technological progress and steadily growing material desires have gradually enhanced our encroachment and led us to marginalize nature. It has become a servant of man rather than a normal part of our lives: and we have largely become estranged from it. Landscape and nature protection are an attempt to take humans back closer to nature. This chapter illustrates this change through the example of a regional nature park in western Switzerland. The Swiss park strategy aims primarily at preserving nature, but in a densely inhabited country, parks often enter into conflict with human activities. It is therefore not astonishing that most protected areas are situated in mountain areas where such conflicts are rarer than in lowland regions. The case study focuses on an alpine region where the economic situation is generally more difficult than on the highly urbanized Swiss plateau, but where the regional potential is being valorised with public support. Nature parks reveal themselves as increasingly popular with people of all generations, for recreation as well as education, and they also prove to be economically viable.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Apart from the insurance industry.

  2. 2.

    There is much more behind this problem, but it cannot be discussed in the present context. Land can be seen as commons, but as Hardin (1968) suggested, individual interests often prevail. Land is all too often considered as “free-for-all” (UNEP 1999, p. 516), and this is a disastrous mentality. It is nowadays considered a commodity (made by human labour), although “land is only another name for nature, which is not produced by man” (Polanyi 1944, p. 75).

  3. 3.

    One part of Fribourg is German speaking, but it lies outside the park area.

  4. 4.

    Four additional communes were accepted as future park members in December 2018. With part of a commune in Berne the park will comprise three cantons.

  5. 5.

    The popular castle and village of Gruyères joined the park in 2018.

  6. 6.

    The remaining quantity was transformed into molten cheese (4.1%) and stocked locally (3.3%).

  7. 7.

    The 2019 climate protests by pupils are but the latest in this chain.

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Acknowledgements

I thank Mr. François Margot, manager of the park, for his valuable input, and Mr. Thierry Bize of Interprofession Gruyère for the data on regional cheese production.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Fribourg/CH, Fribourg, Switzerland

    Walter Leimgruber

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  1. Walter Leimgruber
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Correspondence to Walter Leimgruber .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

    Etienne Nel

  2. Faculty of Education, University of Primorska, Koper, Slovenia

    Stanko Pelc

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Leimgruber, W. (2020). Nature Parks: Valorising Regional Potential—The Gruyère Pays-d’Enhaut Regional Nature Park (Fribourg/Vaud, Switzerland). In: Nel, E., Pelc, S. (eds) Responses to Geographical Marginality and Marginalization. Perspectives on Geographical Marginality, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51342-9_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51342-9_6

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