Publication

Through the Jura mountains: a path of productive nature

2023
Student project
Abstract

In most people’s imagination, the Jura Mountains are a wild and untouched landscape. However, what we now perceive as typical of the region is the outcome of centuries of modifications to make it more hospitable and productive. The accompanying Enoncé Portrait of the Jura Mountains highlights Forest management, creation of wooded pastures, hedgerows and agricultural methods that favour biodiversity and draining of wetlands. The landscapes needs evolve continuously. Agricultural practices tend towards monoculture and abandonment of less productive areas. Concurrently, other uses arise that challenge the fragile balance established. The project is based on the mapping of key elements along a path, built or natural which define an identity described as “Jura-ness”. The suggested route links Le Locle and the Lake Neuchâtel encountering seven different conditions, each with their own potential or shortcomings. The interventions are tailored to each site, ranging in their scope and scale. From a bench to accommodate a couple of hikers to a building dedicated to the produce of pastures, or from small structures to accommodate insects to the renaturation of a whole stream. They combine all the previous general and site-specific considerations with a unique visual identity and vocation of extracting potential of each site. The outcome forms a whole experience of the spirit of “jura-ness” while by contributing to the management, productivity, and longevity of the region’s identity.

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Related concepts (20)
Agriculture
Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, fisheries and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to live in cities. While humans started gathering grains at least 105,000 years ago, nascent farmers only began planting them around 11,500 years ago. Sheep, goats, pigs and cattle were domesticated around 10,000 years ago.
Productive forces
Productive forces, productive powers, or forces of production (German: Produktivkräfte) is a central idea in Marxism and historical materialism. In Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' own critique of political economy, it refers to the combination of the means of labor (tools, machinery, land, infrastructure, and so on) with human labour power. Marx and Engels probably derived the concept from Adam Smith's reference to the "productive powers of labour" (see e.g.
Environmental impact of agriculture
The environmental impact of agriculture is the effect that different farming practices have on the ecosystems around them, and how those effects can be traced back to those practices. The environmental impact of agriculture varies widely based on practices employed by farmers and by the scale of practice. Farming communities that try to reduce environmental impacts through modifying their practices will adopt sustainable agriculture practices.
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