Bavarian dialect area
Austria without Vorarlberg and the Außerfern, Old Bavaria – and South Tyrol. The Seiser Alm is not called that by chance.
Farming & sustainability
Alm, Alpe, Bergmahd – and which of them really lies above the tree line
Three terms that constantly get mixed up. Two of them mean the same thing, the third something completely different – and the most widespread explanation of all is simply wrong.
01 · The misconception
“An Alm lies above the tree line” – that is not true
This sentence appears in countless guidebooks, and it is wrong. None of the Austrian legal definitions ties the Alm to the tree line. They rest on something quite different: the distance to the home farm, the altitude, and the shortened growing season that comes with it. An Alm is an area that lies far from the farm, high enough for a short summer – and is therefore only grazed seasonally.
Austrian Almen range from around 600 to over 2,400 metres above sea level. A large part of them lies in the middle of the forest or at its edge. The Forest Act has its own paragraph for this – forest grazing. Grazing in the forest is thus no special case, but a regular part of many Almen.
Why this is not irrelevant: Whoever believes Alm means tree-free heights doesn't understand why overgrowing is a problem. Precisely because many Alm areas lie in the forest belt, the forest takes them back as soon as nobody clears anymore. And the Latsche – the dwarf mountain pine – counts as forest under forestry law. An overgrown pasture legally changes category, even if no tree you would recognise as such ever stood there.
02 · The same thing, different language
Alm and Alpe – a dialect difference, not a factual one
Whoever says “Alm” and whoever says “Alpe” means exactly the same thing. The boundary runs along the dialect areas, not along state borders.
Alemannic dialect area
Vorarlberg, the Allgäu, Switzerland. There it is called Alpwirtschaft and Alpabzug, in French alpage.
The middle level
Graubünden, Valais, Ticino – in Vorarlberg and West Tyrol the Vorsäss. Around 1,200 to 1,600 m, below the tree line, spring and autumn.
The Maiensäss is the best proof that the tree line has nothing to do with the matter: it lies expressly below it, has its own buildings and is still a fixed part of the same way of farming – the three-level system that links valley, middle level and Alm over the year.
03 · The altitude levels
Low, middle and high Alm
The technical classification goes by altitude – and with it, the number of grazing days goes down. On a low Alm the livestock can stay over 120 days; on a high Alm above 2,000 metres it is under 75. This is no subtlety for statisticians: the grazing period decides how much fodder a farm can save in the valley and whether the Alm pays off at all.
That is why the herds move over the summer. First the lower areas are grazed, in July the high ones, in late summer it goes back down – and then to the valley in good time. The funding rules require at least sixty days of stocking for an area to count as a managed Alm at all.
04 · The third thing
The Bergmahd is not grazed – it is mowed
Here the kinship ends. Bergmähder are steep, high-lying meadows mowed for the winter. No livestock, no fence, no hut – only hay. Traditionally with the scythe and crampon-like irons on the shoes, today mostly with a motor mower, because a tractor simply can't get there or would tip over.
The rules for it are astonishingly precise. In the Austrian agri-environmental scheme, more than half the area must lie above 1,200 metres. Mowing happens at most once a year and at least every second year, the cuttings must be carried off, no fertilising – except with solid manure. Grazing is forbidden; after-grazing is only allowed from 16 August. Depending on the difficulty, the compensation lies between 200 and 750 euros per hectare.
Weigh that against the effort: mowing a steep meadow, raking the hay together, carrying it off, often without a path, often by hand, on a slope where you have to hold on. For 200 to 750 euros per hectare. Bergmähder are not worked because it pays. They are worked because that is what one does.
And because without this work, within a few decades green alder, dwarf pine and dwarf shrub would stand where today is the view you have in your photo.
05 · What depends on it
What happens when nobody mows anymore
On the Pockhorn Bergmähder in the Hohe Tauern National Park, monitoring has been running for years. 208 vascular plant species and 128 pollinator species were counted there; on a square of five by five metres, between 44 and 48 species. On the fallow areas no longer mowed, it is about a quarter fewer – and the supply of blossom declines almost twice as strongly as the species count itself.
A detail the same study provides and that you rarely read: The highest species counts stood not on the once-mowed areas, but on the twice-mowed ones – 58 to 61 species there. So “the more extensive, the more species-rich” is too simple. What is proven is something else and more important: mowing preserves, abandonment impoverishes.
That is why this section is called what it is called. The landscape you come up for is a result of work, not of untouchedness. It lasts as long as there are farms doing it.
When you book with us, you book with one of these farms – or with someone who lives next to one and knows what happens there.
Once more, briefly
Frequently asked questions
Is an Alpe something different from an Alm?
No, it is the same thing. “Alm” is said in Austria, Bavaria and South Tyrol, “Alpe” or “Alp” in Vorarlberg, the Allgäu and Switzerland. There is no factual difference behind it, only a dialect difference.
Do Almen always lie above the tree line?
No. Almen range from around 600 to over 2,400 metres. Low and middle Almen lie in the middle of the forest belt, and grazing in the forest is expressly regulated in the Forest Act. The definition hangs on distance, altitude and a short growing season, not on trees.
What is the difference between Bergmahd and Maiensäss?
A Bergmahd is a pure mowing area without livestock and without buildings. A Maiensäss or Vorsäss is the built-up middle level between valley and Alm, grazed in spring and autumn. Both belong to the same way of farming, but are not the same thing.
May I walk across a Bergmahd?
On the path, yes. A Bergmahd is a fodder area – whoever cuts across it tramples hay someone would have harvested by hand. You can't see it on the slope, but you can on the farmer.
Read on
Alpine pasture farming (Almwirtschaft)
7,971 managed alpine pastures – who does what up there and why.
Grazing
The most demanding way of keeping animals – and the only one where the land gets something back.
Seasonal calendar
What happens at the farm and when it is actually quiet up top – month by month.
You work an Alm, an Alpe or Bergmähder?
Then you know the difference anyway. We explain it to your guests so they know where they are walking.