Alpine valerian, the Norische Speik (Valeriana celtica subsp. norica) is a small vascular plant endemic to the region of an Austrian UNESCO Biosphere Reserve (BR). Due to its cosmetically and medical usable ingredients, the small valerian historically had enormous regional and global economic significance. Today, the use of the plant is simultaneously subject to strict regulations, regional eco-folklore and also industrial utilisation. This leads to a number of questions related to sustainable development, such as decision-making over shared resources, aporetic and archetypal conflicts between conservation and development, and also access and benefit-sharing in relation to biodiversity. In our inherently inter- and transdisciplinary research project, we address questions of sustainable use of the Speik by bringing together historical sources, the knowledge of scientific and non-scientific (regional) stakeholders, and the programmatic goals of the BR. Our research questions relate to the historical development of Speik use, the current framework for extraction and utilisation, and the future opportunities that exist for regional actors.

The Historical Perspective will trace interconnections between different knowledge regimes: vernacular knowledge, explicit and implicit knowledge, and practical and academic knowledge in transition. The multiple historical perspective (Marianne Klemun) is based on a wide variety of methods: this includes a comparative analysis of data on exports in pre-modern times and in the period of global trade. With regard to the cultural appropriation of the plant, discourse analysis will be valuable and the history of knowledge will be oriented towards new approaches that conceptualise knowledge as made by humans, situated in a social context and not discovered in nature.

Main historical questions: What different concepts of sustainability or regulations of the common resource Speik become visible in the historical perspective? Where did the decision on the use of the resource lie, who were the beneficiaries or the losers of the respective regimes?