Forest-pasture separation
A clear line: the forest regrows in peace, the pasture is kept consistently open. Old grazing rights in the forest can be bought out or relocated.
Farming & sustainability
Difficult ground becomes good land
“Agrarstrukturverbesserung” (land improvement) is one of those words you skip past. Behind it is something very tangible: turning land that can hardly be farmed back into usable meadow or pasture.
01 · Starting position
When land is “difficult”
Not every meadow can be driven on. Too steep for the tractor, undulating and full of hollows, strewn with boulders, or cut into three strips that make no sense individually. Such land is first used only extensively, then not at all – and what is no longer used grows over.
For the farm this is a double loss: fodder is lost, and the work on the rest becomes more dangerous because the machinery is travelling on ever steeper ground. Accidents on steep slopes are no side issue in mountain farming.
02 · Material
Where the earth comes from
On the other side stands every construction site. Wherever a cellar is dug out or a road is relaid, soil is produced. If this excavated soil is properly placed on farmland, hollows can be closed and slopes flattened; the topsoil goes back on top at the end. Afterwards the land is drivable, safer and more productive.
That is the idea behind the unwieldy term – and it only works if both sides are right: the land and the material.
03 · Rules
Why this is strictly regulated
Because the same measure can also be abused – as cheap disposal under the guise of farming. That's why several parties watch over it at the same time.
The material: Under waste law, excavated soil is waste, even if it is only earth. It may only be used if it has been tested beforehand and assigned to a permitted quality class, and the placement must be documented. For small quantities per construction site there is a simplified procedure, but not “none at all”. Building rubble, asphalt or mixed material have no place on farmland.
The land: Building regulations, water law and forestry law continue to apply regardless of the thresholds. Draining wet spots, for example, is almost always relevant under water law and, from a conservation point of view, usually the opposite of an improvement – wetlands have become rare.
A call to the district authority (Bezirkshauptmannschaft) beforehand costs nothing. Undoing the work afterwards costs a great deal. This is an explanation, not legal advice.
04 · Boundaries
Forest, pasture and the line between them
The second part of this topic has nothing to do with earth, but with fences. Over decades, alpine pasture areas have grown over while at the same time livestock grazes in the adjacent forest. Together, both are unfavourable: the pasture loses area, and in the forest young trees are browsed so it no longer regenerates – precisely where it is needed as protective forest.
The Latsche is forest
It is a pine, the dwarf mountain pine (Legföhre). An overgrown pasture doesn't just lose fodder, it legally changes category.
Not always subject to a permit
Up to 1,000 m², under certain conditions, only notification is required. Adjacent clearings are added together, though.
Why this is more than pushing earth around: Land that can be driven on again stays in use. Land that stays in use keeps a farm alive. And a farm that lives keeps open the landscape you see on holiday.
05 · Matching accommodations
You can book this landscape
In a secluded location
Open land all around, no neighbour in sight.
Right on the trail
Set off without a car – across exactly these maintained areas.
On the farm
There you see the work this is all about, every day.
Once more, briefly
Frequently asked questions
Isn't that just a disguised landfill?
The difference comes down to two questions: Is the material right – tested, clean, documented? And is the land agriculturally better afterwards than before? Only if both are true is it an improvement. Better land doesn't make bad material good.
Why do you see excavators on alpine pastures?
Mostly because of paths, water pipes, fences or indeed land improvements. Alpine pasture farming is work with machines – the only romantic thing about it is the view.
Doesn't that harm nature?
It depends on where. On an undulating fertile meadow the intervention is small and the benefit large. On a wetland or nutrient-poor meadow it would be the opposite – which is why protected areas, waters and wetlands are excluded.
Do the Tyrolean figures apply everywhere?
No. They are given here as an example. Other federal states and districts have other thresholds – before any project, ask your district authority or the Chamber of Agriculture.
Read on
Why good paths help everyone
Who builds and maintains alpine pasture paths – and why barriers are a liability question.
One farm, several sources of income
Why hardly any mountain farm lives from one thing alone.
Alpine pasture farming (Almwirtschaft)
7,971 managed alpine pastures – who does what up there and why.
Whoever improves land thinks in decades
Letting fits the same calculation: a source of income that carries the farm without displacing the farming.