Linking a World Heritage Site to Sustainable Regional Development—Contested Natures in a Local Negotiation Process

Abstract

Based on the candidature of a region in the Swiss Alps as a World Natural Heritage Site (WHS), this article outlines the negotiation process as reflected in the local media. Discussions of the World Heritage issue over a time span of 4 years revealed how the region concerned was discursively constructed and that discursive constructions implied specific views of nature. By elaborating on these conflicting views of nature, we intend to reflect on the implicit meanings that influenced and structured the debate about the WHS and more generally the issues of sustainable regional development. The results show a broadening of the debate from a rather fragmented toward a more inclusive view of nature, which relates to basic assumptions of the global discourse on sustainable development. Additionally, a view of nature as inherited from past generations extended the WHS discussion and thus gave a new dimension to the concept of sustainability.

Keywords:

• constructed natures
• media representation
• regional development
• sustainable development
• Switzerland
• World Natural Heritage Site

The authors acknowledge support from the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North–South, Research Partnerships for Mitigating Syndromes of Global Change, co-funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).