The participatory development of tourism offerings, such as cultural routes, should be integrated into sustainable natural resource management
Argument
Participatory resource management integrates community-led tourism development with the sustainable stewardship of natural resources, ensuring that local ecosystems and traditional practices are respected and preserved. By involving communities in shaping tourism offerings, such as cultural routes that align with existing resource use, this approach reinforces the connection between heritage, livelihoods, and environmental sustainability. It supports multifunctional landscapes where tourism, agriculture, and conservation coexist, allowing local populations to benefit economically while maintaining control over the natural resources that define their cultural identity.
Practical applications
In Spain traditional water management, maintained by the irrigation communities. The use of irrigation ditches not only supports agriculture but also creates ‘water’ landscapes that provide spaces for tourism and recreation, further enhancing local livelihoods.
The Consortages de Bisses: Community-based water management and territorial heritage
In Switzerland, the consortages de bisses refer to historic irrigation canals (bisses)that have, for several centuries, enabled the management and distribution of water from glaciers to agricultural lands. They are governed according to customary rules and collective rights passed down from generation to generation by local communities, based on a system of rights-holders who practice irrigation through successive water turns. Beyond water management, these systems contribute to the preservation of landscapes and biodiversity, as well as to the maintenance of agropastoral practices. The maintenance and use of the bisses are carried out collectively by local residents, through assemblies and internal rules that organize the sharing of water and the upkeep of the infrastructures. Today, the bisses are also integrated into tourism and heritage initiatives and are promoted as living cultural landscapes, in line with international frameworks such as UNESCO conventions on heritage and cultural landscapes. Their continued existence illustrates the transformation and persistence of an ancestral common, now recognized as a territorial common that combines resource management, cultural heritage, and local development.
L’Hermitage, a third place and a cooperative
L'Hermitage, a third place founded in 2017 in the north of France, which positions itself as a place for rural and civic innovation. This venue brings together two private companies, which pursue a set social and environmental purpose with specific sustainability goals and offer event services and seminars, as well as consultancy, support and prototyping services for highimpact projects. A land cooperative is responsible for managing the estate, while an association looks after activities of general interest, both local and national. On a 30-hectare estate, a forestry management program is under way, aimed at creating a “forest common for use”, involving forest users and public authorities in drawing up a charter of use. A forest management plan, drawn up in consultation with the various stakeholders, will contribute to the implementation of this common use system. L'Hermitage is a typical example of a hybrid initiative that combines different legal tools, mobilizes private and public funds and brings together a composite community of stakeholders aiming at economic-oriented cooperation and organized as a Territorial Economic Cooperation Cluster (PTCE).
Snowchange, a research cooperative for ecological restoration and community-based ecosystem management
The Snowchange Cooperative, based in Finland, is a network of traditional and Indigenous communities in the boreal and Arctic regions that works with local and Indigenous peoples (notably the Sámi) to document climate change and restore local ecosystems. It operates as a research cooperative, combining scientific knowledge with Indigenous ecological knowledge. The knowledge produced through research directly supports ecological restoration projects and community-based ecosystem management initiatives that promote local livelihoods and biodiversity. The initiative notably builds on the Landscape Rewilding Programme, supported by European funding and partners such as the European Investment Bank. Its socio-economic model relies on the acquisition or collective management of restored lands through community governance, funding from public grants and environmental funds, and the development of local activities linked to ecosystem services, such as nature tourism, carbon credits, and ecological restoration.
The Central Dartmoor Farmer Cluster: A Community Interest Company for landscape recovery
The Central Dartmoor Farm Cluster originated as a working group whose objective is to rethink land use and landscape management in Dartmoor, England, by seeking a balance between sustainable agriculture and ecological health. The collective is organized around a project aimed at restoring and enhancing the landscape through a holistic approach to land management that reconciles food production with environmental conservation and restoration. It adopts a systemic perspective in which the project considers landscape as a whole. The community brings together farmers, landowners, nature conservationists, landscape professionals, commoners, and local associations. In addition, the community develops a tourism offer based on raising awareness of responsible agricultural practices, biodiversity, and landscape stewardship. The Central Dartmoor Farm Cluster has been established as a Community Interest Company (CIC), a form of limited social enterprise that operates in the public interest and goes beyond a simple logic of private profit. This legal status allows the organization to access public funding and resembles the cooperative model, although it does not fully belong to the social and solidarity economy.
Tālava Cidery: Transforming Cider Tasting Tours with Sustainable Digital Solutions
The initiative is built around the shared regional heritage of apple growing, craft beverage production and local food traditions. TĀLAVA’s production is closely connected to local agriculture, seasonal harvests and traditional fermentation knowledge, while adapting these practices to modern consumer expectations and sustainable methods.
The project also highlights broader regional assets such as local sourcing, circular production practices and Northern food culture, which are important parts of the area’s identity but are often underrepresented in tourism experiences.
These traditions are not disappearing entirely, but they are increasingly challenged by industrialised food systems, depopulation, limited visibility of local producers and changing consumer habits. Smaller rural producers also face difficulties competing with large-scale international brands and attracting younger audiences to local heritage and production culture.
