The Dark Side of Medieval Sustainability: The Social Construction of Sustainable Practices in Western and Central Alps Italian Communities

This article explores the ambivalent nature of «sustainability» in late-medieval Alpine communities, showing how communal statutes reveal a social rather than ecological logic behind environmental regulation. Through examples from the Western and Central Alps, it argues that practices designed to preserve forests and pastures primarily protected economic resources and reflected existing social hierarchies. Forest management and pasture access were regulated through fiscal mechanisms that often excluded poorer inhabitants, while animals were subject to discriminatory hierarchies and large carnivores systematically exterminated. The case of Arnad (1346), where goats were banned to protect woods and meadows, epitomizes the tension between social order, economic utility, and ecological disruption. Medieval «sustainability», essentially plant-based and utilitarian, thus laid the foundations for enduring conflicts between environmental control and social inequality.