Transport Infrastructure in the Mountains: Why and How to Protect Landscape with Human Activity as Part of its Heritage

Abstract

In mountain areas without permanent settlements, human activity is entirely dependent on spatial interaction. For centuries, local and regional traffic has followed livestock trails and footpaths. Mainly during the 20th century, new public and private roads changed this situation significantly in large parts of Norway. While mountain summer farming decreased, hydropower development and leisure use became dominant. Protected areas have been established to preserve possibilities for outdoor recreation and ‘wilderness’. However, seasonal farming activity is still an important upholder of cultural heritage. In the investigated area in western Norway, parallels between accessibility and human activity on mountain summer farmsteads have been identified with the abandonment of dairy production between ca 1905 and 1973, recent use by landowners and hikers’ use of publicly accessible tourist cabins. Increased differences in accessibility and protection status have resulted in diversification of human activity in different locations. Custom and tradition represent different principles according to which cultural landscape can be maintained—with emphasis on dynamics or invariance, respectively. Recent landscape protection focuses primarily on tradition. The necessity of easy access to maintain the living cultural heritage in addition to ‘wilderness’ areas, however, requires taking both concepts into account, most probably treated as geographically separate.