What, How, and Why? Collecting Traditional Knowledge on Forest Uses in Switzerland

Abstract

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, forest use and management in Switzerland underwent radical changes (Bürgi 1999). Before this period, traditional forest uses, such as woodland pasturing, wood hay and litter collection and even crop production on temporary fields in the forest were a common practice throughout the country. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, these non-timber forest uses have been increasingly abandoned and/or banned from the forests. This development has been paralleled by an increasing interest in wood as an industrial good and the introduction of the science of forestry together with the implementation of forest laws. Furthermore, agricultural modernization and a rapidly growing infrastructure after the Second World War facilitated importing resources from abroad and consequently took pressure from the forests to supply resources for the local demand. Lately, uses, such as woodland pasturing and litter collection, have gained attention from various scientific disciplines due to their importance for cultural history, ecosystem development and carbon sequestration in forests (Perruchoud et al. 1999; Gimmi et al. 2008).