“Intergenerational Learning As A Factor In Sustainable Development Of The Rural Mountainous Areas”

Problem
Project
Project team

Problem

Mountainous areas in Europe are centers of natural and cultural diversity. However, their inhabitants are facing a lack of opportunities and limited possibility to participate in and influence local development processes. This causes outmigration of the population, abandonment of the rural settlements, especially by the younger generations, leading to environmental degradation, the loss of cultural traditions. The remaining population, which is often of the older generation, is facing the lack of infrastructure, and low economic opportunities. At the same time, certain mountainous areas face pressure from various industrial sectors, including tourism, which often endangers the natural resources, is inconsiderate of proper benefit-sharing with the local population, and could lead to degradation of traditional lifestyles.

One of the factors, and at the same time consequences, is the lack of participation by the younger and older generations in regional development, incompatibility of their views on development options, lack of opportunities to valorize their abilities, and loss of useful knowledge.   The pressures are exacerbated by the lack of information and awareness, both among the local population – about the sustainable development threats, possibilities and competencies available in their communities – and among the other stakeholders, such as national administration, businesses or international organizations – about the extent of local knowledge, value of participation and co-management, and potential benefits Intergenerational dialogue and learning may bring to the development process.

Intergenerational relations are strongly embedded into the widely accepted concept of sustainable development, as the latter assumes intergenerational equity as one of its underlying principles. However, this notion is not always approached in detail, and specifically the communication among the participating generations is not often explicitly addressed.

The aging of the global population makes this issue more relevant, especially in the rural areas, where the demographic changes lead to development and infrastructure challenges and to the loss of knowledge, culture, and traditions: as the older connoisseurs die, and the younger move away or do not find traditional practices relevant or useful any more. Given the above, it seems sensible to propose that sustainable development of the rural areas would benefit through an approach grounded on intergenerational dialogue and cooperation.

Unfortunately, intergenerational issues have been relatively rarely approached in the framework of sustainability.  Although intergenerational learning is more directly related to social aspects of sustainability – through strengthening connections between the community members, addressing stereotypes, promoting mutual respect and mutually-beneficial collaboration – it can also influence economic and environmental spheres. Most of the existing examples deal with one, or at the most, two of the three pillars: social, or economic, and more rarely, environmental.

The potential role of intergenerational learning in natural resource management has not been considered by the research community to-date.However, much of this existing work provides a useful foundation for developing a more comprehensive and targeted approach to using intergenerational cooperation both as a tool for, and one of the aspects of, achieving sustainable development.

Project

The objectives of the current research project are to examine Intergenerational Learning as a factor in, and a tool for sustainable development of the rural mountainous communities, including protected area management, and to provide scenarios of protected areas as spaces for intergenerational learning.

Cases and practices of Intergenerational learning will be investigated, with a special attention to their application to the context of sustainable development in the rural mountainous areas: 1) examples of intergenerational knowledge learning will be collected from literature; 2) three running case-studies in Bulgaria, Italy and Greece will be followed through participation in the Lifelong Learning project “Big Foot. Crossing generations, crossing mountains”; 3) data on intergenerational learning as a factor in protected area planning and management will be collected via interviews, including through the network of the Interim Secretariat of the Carpathian Convention, such as the Carpathian Network of Protected Areas. The research results will be used to derive and propose recommendations for protected area management and on the policy level.

Project team

phd-student: Mitrofanenko Tamara, Mag.
supervisor:  Muhar Andreas, Ao. Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. nat.techn.
co-supervisor: Penker Marianne, Ao.Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.