High-Altitude Pastures

As agricultural land is overgrowing even in the valleys, grazing on high-altitude pastures is no longer as important for farmers as it used to be; however, it is an opportunity for farmers to increase the benefits of farming through communal work.

High-quality dairy products, produced and sold on a pasture, are more than food for visitors, and for the farmer a way to make money.
Mountain pastures have marked 5,000 years of man's presence in the Julian Alps. From the French Alps in the west to the Slovenian Alps in the east, economic activity has arisen from thousands of years of experience and growing knowledge and understanding of the nature whose only guarantee of survival was its relationship to nature. To use natural resources without using them up, to exploit without abusing, to take while also preserving and protecting – these have been the fundaments of pastoral economy.

There are no active alps in the Upper Soča Basin, but the Mangartska planina pasture in the Loška Koritnica Valley is still in operation. In the area of Kobarid and Bovec, a number of pastures in the Krn area are still used by dairy farmers (Zaprikraj, Kuhinja and other pastures on the Krn plateau including the pastures Planina Sleme, Planina Petrovč and Planina Razor). In the area of Bohinj, the pastures Planina Krstenica, Velo Polje, Konjščica and several small alps are still being used, as well as the pastures Javornik and Klek on the Pokljuka plateau. As for the Upper Sava Valley, cattle still pasture on the alps of Vrtaška planina, Zasipska planina and Planina v Klinu.

TNP supports alpine dairy farming by:

• implementing a multi-annual plan for conservation of traditional farming practices (subsidies for technological rooms, solar power supply systems, access roads, etc.)
• carrying out international alpine dairy farming projects
• counselling agrarian and grazing communities