Analyzing the vulnerabilities and capabilities of wealth creation activities in the Maurienne valley in the French Alps

Alpine valleys constitute fragile environments and are very sensitive to environmental change. Current trends constitute major upheavals challenging these communities’ adaptation abilities. Coupling quantitative modeling and qualitative social sciences analyses is necessary to provide insights on sources of vulnerability but such endeavors remain rare in the scientific literature. We present a metabolism-capabilities-vulnerabilities framework, which describes local communities and their environment as a network of wealth creation activities. We apply this framework to one of the main farming activities in the Alpine valley of Maurienne, the production of Beaufort cheese. We describe how stakeholders are involved in the supply chain and then quantify the economic and environmental aspects of the flows. We introduce the concept of “territorial capabilities” to analyze the ability of stakeholders to cope with change through a reorientation of their activities. We highlight that while current environmental pressures do not seem to exceed local environmental limits, climate change is likely to be a source of future vulnerability. On the socio-economic side, the analysis points out the dependence on subsidies and the aging of the workforce as other potential threats to this activity. Conversely, the local cooperatives system appears to be the main asset in vulnerability reduction. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10113-022-01908-0.