Abstract
Alpine open spaces provide multiple services that sustain human life and the intrinsic values of (near-) natural areas: recreation, provision of food and climate regulation, to name just a few. Increasing human impacts and landscape fragmentation put these precious spaces under pressure. Spatial planning for open spaces – and especially harmonised transnational planning – is, or could be, fundamental for safeguarding these open space functions and “unbuilt opportunity spaces” in the Alps for future generations.
The strategic recommendations comprise technical and content-related aspects, maps and in particular governance aspects relevant to open space management in the Alps, contributing to the more efficient transnational coordination of safeguarding open spaces. This document is intended as a tool to achieve a better understanding of the concept of open spaces and help to implement or improve (spatial) planning processes – from the regional up to the transnational level. To this end, the strategic recommendations
upgrade the project outputs (= findings & experiences) of the Interreg Alpine Space project OpenSpaceAlps (2019 - 2022) and make them usable for the project’s target groups.