Nature-related knowledge as intangible cultural heritage: safeguarding and tourism utilisation in Austria

This study presents challenges and potentials of local and traditional nature-related knowledge as a tourism resource and reveals how it fits into the process of constructing and safeguarding intangible cultural heritage (ICH). Furthermore it proposes an analytical framework for in-depth research on concrete cases. The study contributes to the emerging discussion on the tension between safeguarding and commodifying ICH by an interdisciplinary literature review and interviews with key stakeholders in Austria. The study analyses experts’ opinions and presents some domains of ‘local’ or ‘traditional’ nature-related knowledge from Austria, considered as ICH and valorised through tourism and leisure offers. The commercial use of this knowledge and the simultaneous effort to safeguard it as ICH bring numerous actors from tourism and heritage organisations and their interests into conflict. UNESCO’s influence in heritage-making and valorisation and the prioritising of certain domains and thus increasing their chance for tourism utilisation are also discussed. Furthermore, findings from the expert interviews reveal that the concepts ‘traditional’ or ‘local’ are problematic in the European context because the boundaries between localities, as well as between experience-based and scientific knowledge are unclear. Issues like ‘uniqueness’ and ‘ownership’ of the knowledge or ICH are also discussed in the interviews.