2005

4th Innsbruck Nature Film Days

Agriculture and nature conservation – Looking for a way together

This year the4th Innsbruck Nature Film Days – an event organized by the Department of Environmental Protection  – is attended to agriculture and nature conversation.

During a long-standing fight, while people just tried to survive in the mountains their activities transformed the landscape from an untouched natural one to a cultivated one. As a consequence of clearing parts of the forests and generating acres and alpine pastures, the species diversity increased. Today these areas are important habitats of many different species of animals and plants. A conflict of interest between agriculture and environmental conservation was inevitable. The following conflicts regarding the last decades are well-known. So today the challenge is to come together and find a way that satisfies both. A cultivation that provides enough to the farmers and that is extensive enough to make sure there are space and the right conditions for a multiplicity of species.

This and the question regarding farmers and their work today in general are the central concerns of the 4th Innsbruck nature film festival. The motion pictures take back us into the past, so we can understand the beginning of the conflicts. The life of mountain farmers, especially in Tyrol, is paid attention in particular. What changes in agriculture at higher elevation took place in front of Erika Hubatschek´s camera during the last decades? What are the reasons to producer Erich Langjahr to capture mountain farmers in Switzerland, whose work is kind of anachronistic?

The Department of Environmental Protection decided to cooperate again with the LEO cinema and this time with some different partners out of the agricultural and nature conservative sector, because especially the media film provides the opportunity to address people’s emotionality. Besides we are all responsible to make sure that our children can experience a world full of manifold landscapes with hedges, mountain farmers and colorful alpine meadows.

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