Ressources paysagères et ressources énergétiques dans les montagnes sud-européennes. Histoire, comparaison, expérimentation

TLDR: In this paper, the authors analyse how the interplay of actors brings about this spatial partition and show how the power of an elite as an aesthetic authority, was imposed on communities in the mountain areas.

Abstract: The development of hydroelectricity in the French central Pyrenees at the beginning of the 20 century gave rise to some strong resistance, all in the name of landscape preservation and protection of the tourist resource that it represented. Space had to be shared, and some reserves of picturesque features were obtained from the industrialists, in exchange for a free hand in tourist development. The chapter analyses how the interplay of actors brings about this spatial partition. It shows the ambivalence of the discourse constructed to legitimise it. By looking in depth at the case of the protected site of Gavarnie, it sheds light on the nature of the social issues that were emerging as a background to this resistance to hydroelectricity in the landscape and shows how, through it, the power of an elite as an aesthetic authority, was imposed on communities in the mountain areas. The arrival around 1900 of the energy paradigm of hydroelectric power marked a decisive historical threshold for a great number of mountain massifs in Europe. The development of hydroelectricity first transformed the mountains into an area that welcomed industrial modernity, then, especially after the end of the First World War, into a production area for an energy that could now be transported, and which mainly benefited the low-lying plains. Today this separation of energy production and consumption is almost complete, with the majority of electrometallurgical and electrochemical factories in the high mountain valleys having been dismantled and reconverted. This gives the mountains the status of "energy reserve" (according to the terms used in the 1992 Rio Declaration) which can only be exploited and developed through national and trans-national networks (Blanc and Bonin 2008). The flow of energy between the mountains and the plains which started at the beginning of the 20 century was an extremely powerful vector for assimilating the populations and economies of the mountain areas. This was especially so since at this very time when the mountains were required to satisfy the energy needs of the lowlands and the towns, a new stage was reached in developing the tourist potential of the high massifs, with hydroelectricity creating the conditions for improving the accessibility and attractiveness of the high mountain areas (Bouneau 1997, 2003, Métailié and Rodriguez 2011, Rodriguez 2012). 1 . Traduit du français par Hilary Koziol. 2 This observation and all the analyses that follow are based on the initial results of research entitled "Landscape resources and energy resources in mountains in Southern Europe. History, comparison, experimentation", in the context of the programme Ignis mutat res. Considering architecture, cities and landscapes through the prism of energy, and financed by the Atelier International du Grand Paris. This research covers four mountain regions in Europe: the Sierra Nevada, the Dolomites, the Valais and the Pyrenees.