Paper short abstract:

This paper presents ethnographic fieldwork exploring how climate change induced snow loss disrupts the alpine water cycle that traditional livestock farming in Switzerland depends on. It highlights farmers' resilience and the need for integrating indigenous knowledge of the mountains into policy.

Paper long abstract:

The implications of climate change on alpine landscapes, rapidly warming temperatures and unpredictable precipitation, have been prominently discussed globally, with Switzerland at the forefront. In this paper, I present ethnographic fieldwork with Swiss farmers focussing on the impacts of snow disappearing from alpine agriculture. While the implications of snow disappearing from tourism and winter sport have been widely discussed, the implications of a lack of snow in alpine livestock farming have yet to be foregrounded. Snow is crucial not only as a winter surface but as water storage that sustains the vertical mountainous landscape all year-round. The increasing absence and unpredictability of snow disrupt traditional three-stage farming practices, in which livestock are moved up the mountain along the snow line. These altered water cycles render parts of the landscape unproductive. I discuss Swiss farmers’ resilience to hostile weather conditions, adaptation strategies to changing landscapes, and future imaginaries of agriculture after snow. Finally, I address the challenges alpine farmers face in competition for water with winter tourism and the hydro-energy sector, which generates nearly 60% of Swiss energy. The paper highlights the importance of integrating indigenous ecological knowledge and landscape understanding into political dialogues to address the impacts of climate change and develop strategies that support all stakeholders in the alpine region.