Economy Of Ellmau

Ellmau’s economy functions as a meticulously engineered system, optimizing every component—from the high-capacity, energy-autonomous lift infrastructure to the maintenance of the pastoral landscape—for maximum visitor value. This Tyrolean model is characterized by relentless capital investment, routinely exceeding €27 million annually in the SkiWelt alliance, directed not only toward comfort but as a defensive strategy against climate volatility. The integration of 100% green energy and precision resource management (such as GPS snow monitoring) secures the physical product (snow) against environmental threats. Critically, the pursuit of year-round stability extends to deliberate investments in cultural assets, such as media tourism surrounding the popular Bergdoktor series, and sophisticated employee housing projects. These efforts mitigate seasonal risk and social strain, illustrating a mature economic realization: long-term success requires internalizing both environmental costs and community needs to secure the essential elements of this alpine enterprise.

Ellmau’s Place in the Tyrolean Economic Architecture

The small municipality of Ellmau, positioned beneath the prominent massif of the Wilder Kaiser in Austria’s Tyrol, operates as a specialized economic engine. Its financial architecture is built almost entirely upon the highly successful, capital-intensive industry of international tourism. Understanding Ellmau’s commerce requires placing it within the larger, unique economic specialization of the federal state of Tyrol.

The Regional Specialization of Tyrol: Quantifying Economic Concentration

Tyrol maintains an economy intensely specialized in providing services for visitors, both domestic and foreign. This structure results in significant financial concentration within the region. The contribution of tourism is not merely a supplementary income stream but a foundational pillar of the entire regional system. In 2023, the combined direct and indirect value effects of the tourism sector accounted for a remarkable 16.5% of Tyrol’s overall economic performance. This figure dramatically exceeds the equivalent contributions seen in other regions of Austria.

This structural concentration extends deeply into the labor market. In 2023, tourism activities accounted for 17.3% of total employment within Tyrol. This high degree of reliance means that a substantial proportion of Tyrolean residents depend directly on the sector’s continued stability and growth. While this specialization drives efficiency and global competitiveness, it simultaneously creates a pronounced vulnerability. The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw the share of tourism in Austria’s GDP drop from 7.6% in 2019 to 4.1% in 2021, illustrates how external economic or health shocks are felt disproportionately hard in regions like Tyrol, which lack alternative economic diversification to provide redundancy.

The financial health of the region is secured primarily through non-local spending. Tyrol consistently generates the highest tourist consumption in Austria, reaching €9.66 billion in 2023. A critical factor defining the region’s stability is the high share of this consumption that originates from international visitors. Specifically, 84.0% of Tyrol’s tourist expenditure derived from foreign guests in 2023, substantially surpassing the national Austrian foreign expenditure share of 61.5%. Ellmau, located within the Kitzbühel Alps, functions as a high-profile destination that acts as a significant conduit, channeling vast amounts of foreign capital directly into the regional circulation, reinforcing the entire economic model.

Ellmau’s Geographic and Demographic Framework

Ellmau is administratively situated within the Kufstein province 3 and is a key participating community in the expansive SkiWelt Wilder Kaiser-Brixental alliance. The community operates on a modest scale relative to the massive infrastructure it manages. With a land area of 35.97 square kilometers, Ellmau supported a population of 2,885 residents as of 2021. The essential constraint on the local economy stems from this small population base, which must provision and service a transient visitor population that seasonally dwarfs its residential core.

The foundations of this modern economic structure trace back to significant shifts in European leisure patterns following the Second World War. Post-war economic recovery and the resulting rise in middle-class disposable income, particularly in Western Germany, led to a substantial increase in leisure travel starting in the 1960s. Austrian destinations were positioned ideally to benefit from this expansion, providing the initial fueling mechanisms for the vast tourism infrastructure that characterizes alpine resorts today.

Ellmau’s demographics also reflect its function as a service hub. The community exhibits a notable incidence of foreign residents, recorded at 24.3% in 2021. This structural detail indicates a necessary reliance on international labor to satisfy the rigorous demands of the high-volume service sector, a dependency that creates its own set of socio-economic pressures that the community must address.

Financing Local Operations: The Mechanism of the Visitor Tax

To maintain the quality of the visitor experience and support the local infrastructure required by the intense volume of guests, local authorities secure funding through a dedicated fee mechanism. This is the tourist tax, also referred to as the visitor’s tax or local tax, which is legally mandated by the State of Tyrol.

In the four towns comprising the Wilder Kaiser region, including Ellmau, a standardized rate of €2.50 per person per night applies to visitors over the age of fifteen. This revenue stream is collected by accommodation providers and subsequently directed to the local Tourismusverband (Tourist Office). The funds secured through this mechanism are specifically designated to finance crucial municipal services tied directly to the tourism product: maintaining local infrastructure, providing guest services, operating local transportation systems (such as ski and hiker buses), and regional marketing efforts.

The structure of the visitor tax suggests a sophisticated approach to municipal finance. It represents a partial internalization of the wear-and-tear and service costs associated with high visitor volume directly onto the user (the tourist), rather than placing the entire financial burden solely on the local tax base. This mechanism preserves the quality and availability of essential tourism-related services while ensuring the local municipal budget is not overwhelmed by the maintenance needs of a high-capacity service environment.

The Engine of Winter: Capital Investment and the SkiWelt Mechanism

The core operational and financial strength of Ellmau is intrinsically tied to its participation in the SkiWelt Wilder Kaiser-Brixental. This unified system functions through continuous, large-scale capital mobilization, prioritizing technological sophistication and high-volume guest throughput to sustain global competitiveness.

The Collaborative Structure and Investment Mandate

The SkiWelt alliance is a sophisticated organizational model that links multiple communities, including Ellmau, Söll, and Scheffau.4 This cooperation permits the strategic, coordinated mobilization of capital necessary for operating one of the world’s largest ski areas (275 km of pistes). The operators adhere to a philosophy of relentless modernization, evidenced by the vast sums invested annually into lift systems and associated infrastructure.11 These continuous investments typically surpass €27 million per year.

The purpose of this aggressive capital allocation is threefold: modernization of existing lift technology, increases in passenger service capacity, and enhancement of sustainability and energy efficiency features.12 The scale of this financial requirement functions as an immense financial barrier to entry for potential competitors. Smaller, less coordinated ski areas often cannot sustain such a demanding and continuous modernization cycle, leading to the concentration of market share and pricing power within established mega-regions such as the SkiWelt. This dynamic helps to explain the regional administration’s ability to uphold strategic price targets.

The Calculus of Capacity and Throughput: Technical Sophistication

New infrastructure investments are judged primarily on their ability to move massive numbers of people efficiently, maximizing the utility of the available slope hours. This focus on speed and comfort is a subtle, yet profound, response to environmental variability and competitive pressure.

The development of the new 8-seater Eibergbahn at SkiWelt Scheffau provides a case study in this focus on operational efficiency. This installation features a dynamic transport capacity reaching up to 4,570 persons per hour, establishing it as one of the most powerful detachable chairlifts operating globally. Beyond its operational speed of 5 meters per second, the lift incorporates features aimed at guest comfort, such as seat heating. Furthermore, in the interest of energy efficiency and resource management, the system permits variable chair insertion, allowing operators to deploy a minimum of sixteen chairs based on real-time demand, ensuring conservation of energy.

The intense focus on extremely high throughput (4,570 P/h) represents an economic adaptation to climate pressures. If the number of guaranteed, prime-condition operational days diminishes due to shorter winters or increased weather variability, the resort must maximize activity during the available windows. Faster, higher-capacity lifts convert limited snow resources into maximum revenue potential within a shorter timeframe, acting as a form of non-environmental climate strategy.

The management of aging infrastructure demonstrates a methodical approach to asset life cycles. Rather than being immediately retired and scrapped, the previous components of the Eibergbahn were sold overseas as a complete unit for a second operational life after a general overhaul. This practice highlights the exceptional quality and longevity of high-end alpine technology and suggests the existence of a robust global secondary market for Tyrolean-grade components.

Future Trajectories: Consolidation and Scale

The regional approach to market dominance consistently prioritizes scale. Planning discussions have involved the possibility of further consolidation to achieve unprecedented operational size, reinforcing the competitive strategy.

Provisional plans have examined a merger between the SkiWelt and the adjacent KitzSki area. Such a consolidation would create a combined domain spanning approximately 508 skiable kilometers, supported by 139 lifts. This ambitious expansion would require an estimated infrastructure investment exceeding €100 million for adaptation and integration.10 This pursuit of maximized size reflects the regional conviction that superior scale directly supports sustained market attraction, although such expansion projects necessitate rigorous navigation of environmental impact studies and license applications.10 The financing required for projects of this magnitude suggests sophisticated financial arrangements, likely mirroring public-private partnership models common in large-scale concessions, where responsibilities, obligations, and risks are formally allocated between the relevant authorities and the private operators.

Adaptation to Environmental Pressure: Resource Management and Energy Autonomy

For mid-altitude ski regions like Ellmau, the viability of the entire economic system is dependent upon effective adaptation to climate change. The sustained financial stability of the area rests fundamentally on its ability to manage two crucial inputs: snow, predominantly through technical generation, and energy, sourced securely and sustainably.

Strategic Response to Climate Constraints

The alpine tourism industry is keenly aware of the threats associated with a warming climate, recognizing the particular vulnerability of lower-altitude ski resorts. The core of the adaptation strategy centers on guaranteeing snow conditions through the effective use of technical snow production, which is viewed as the appropriate technology to overcome potential natural snow scarcity.

Within the SkiWelt, snow production adheres to a “purity principle,” relying strictly on air and water. The water required is sourced from snowmaking ponds, which naturally accumulate rain and snowmelt. This system fosters a circular economy on the mountain: the water is used for snow, and in the spring, the meltwater returns naturally to the environment. This deliberate practice of sourcing water from natural precipitation and melt cycles is intended to reduce the possibility of resource conflict with residential and agricultural users in the valley, recognizing that water allocation can become a sensitive socio-political issue in tourism-dense alpine areas.

Efficiency and Resource Conservation through Technology

Beyond the mere capacity to generate snow, technical sophistication is focused on efficiency, addressing both environmental concerns and the need to reduce operational costs associated with immense resource consumption. The introduction of the GPS snow measurement system is exemplary of this approach.

This technology allows slope preparation to be managed precisely, measuring snow depth to the centimeter. Since its implementation, this precision monitoring system has yielded quantifiable economic and environmental benefits, resulting in documented annual savings of 20-25% of both water and energy resources required for snow management.10 The verification of these savings validates the economic efficiency of the sustainability efforts, transforming ecological necessity into a financial imperative.

Energy Independence and Decarbonization Strategy

The energy demand necessary for operating high-speed lift systems and powering technical snowmaking is substantial. Regional operators have strategically reduced the exposure to energy market volatility by committing to robust energy sourcing and self-generation.

The SkiWelt operates exclusively using 100% green energy sourced from Tyrolean hydropower.10 This institutional purchasing decision provides a predictable energy cost structure and ensures compliance with ecological mandates. Further insulating the operations, new infrastructure actively integrates decentralized generation capacity. For instance, the new Eibergbahn valley station includes a 140 kWP photovoltaic (PV) system on its roof, which is projected to generate approximately 50% of the station’s annual energy requirements internally. Similarly, the SkiWelt Söll has moved toward increased energy self-sufficiency by constructing a small hydroelectric power plant on the Stampfanger Bach, capable of covering about 25% of its yearly energy needs.

This comprehensive approach—combining external hydropower procurement with internal renewable generation (solar and micro-hydro)—secures a critical input cost. By guaranteeing reliable, clean energy, the operators ensure the financial viability of technical snow production, thereby securing the core product (winter tourism) and guaranteeing operational resilience. This stewardship extends to broader practices, including the utilization of heat recovery systems from lift operations to warm adjacent buildings, rigorous waste separation systems at all stations, and the testing of electric buses for mobility improvements.

The Pursuit of Balance: Strategies for Year-Round Stability and Diversification

Ellmau’s goal of economic resilience necessitates mitigating the risks inherent in heavy winter seasonality. The Wilder Kaiser region has adopted specific, measurable strategic targets and capitalized on unique cultural assets to distribute visitor flow more evenly across the entire year.

Quantifying the Seasonality Challenge and Strategic Pricing

The regional Tourismusverband actively manages the financial volatility associated with the transitions between high, mid, and low seasons through targeted marketing and disciplined pricing. The Wilder Kaiser strategy outlined ambitious goals for visitor rebalancing up to 2024.

The strategy explicitly aimed for a 20% increase in overnight stays during the low season and a substantial 50% increase in overnight stays during the mid-season, acknowledging the extremely low baseline from which this growth would originate. These specific targets underscore a direct, focused effort to flatten the seasonality curve and reduce the region’s structural reliance solely on peak winter revenues.

Price management is an intertwined element of this long-term strategy. The plan targeted an annual price increase of 4% (inclusive of inflation) across room bookings, apartments, and active program participation. This signifies a commitment to high-value tourism, prioritizing yield management over mere volume expansion. Furthermore, the strategy aimed to increase the share of advance sales for additional services to 30% by 2024. This improvement in financial predictability greatly assists local businesses with working capital management and resource planning.

The targeted price increase suggests confidence in the premium perception of the Ellmau brand. By systematically raising prices alongside continuous investment (new lifts, sophisticated services, improved staff accommodation), the destination actively manages guest expectations upward, positioning itself as a high-quality product that is less susceptible to market pressures that affect discount-seeking destinations.

Wilder Kaiser Strategic Targets for Tourism Stabilization

The Summer Offering: Active and Health-Centered Tourism

To successfully fill the operational gap left by the absence of snow, Ellmau markets its summer environment as a center for specialized outdoor activities, luxury wellness, and cultural experiences.

The focus on active recreation includes the proliferation of specialized e-biking infrastructure. Rental packages for high-quality e-bikes are common, supported by extensive route and tour maps for varying ability levels.21 These packages often combine accommodation with e-bike access, hiking gear, and comprehensive wellness offerings, such as large spa facilities with pools and outdoor whirlpools.

Furthermore, high-end hospitality venues contribute significantly to diversification by specializing in high-caliber retreats, conferences, and cultural programs.23 These exclusive locations, sometimes positioning themselves as Cultural Hideaways, feature access to internationally renowned concerts and festivals alongside sophisticated spa amenities. This capability to host high-level events, ranging from corporate seminars and product launches to major political gatherings like the G7 Summit, attests to the high quality of local infrastructure and support services. The ability to attract prestigious global corporate and political events significantly elevates the overall brand prestige of Ellmau, reinforcing the justification for the high-value pricing strategy applied to general visitors.

Media Resonance and Cultural Commerce: The Bergdoktor Effect

An unexpected but highly effective driver of year-round tourism is Ellmau’s function as the principal setting for the immensely popular German-Austrian television series, Der Bergdoktor (The Mountain Doctor).26

This media presence successfully converts fictional appeal into real-world foot traffic. The set locations, including the Hinterschnabel farmhouse (the fictional medical practice) and the Köpfing farm (the Gruber family residence), have become recognizable, highly sought-after pilgrimage sites for devoted fans.27 The farm locations, particularly the Gruber farm at Söller Bromberg with its panoramic terrace overlooking the Kaiser Mountains, are celebrated in the series.

The local tourism bodies capitalize on this visibility by transforming the media attention into experiential assets. Organized fan days, often featuring actors from the series, are specifically scheduled during the spring and autumn shoulder seasons. Furthermore, guided and individual tours of the filming locations are readily available by foot or by bike. This strategy provides a measurable, non-weather-dependent draw for visitors during traditionally slower periods. The resulting media multiplier effect ensures that fan events and location visits coincide with accommodation, dining, and retail purchases, substantially extending the visitor’s economic contribution beyond the traditional focus of a ski pass.

Structural Tensions: Labor, Housing, and Community Cohesion

The intense economic success generated by Ellmau’s tourism industry produces significant pressure on its socio-spatial structure. The high, specialized demand for service labor clashes directly with the market pressure created by high-value real estate investment, generating a difficult environment for the community’s workforce.

The Dual Labor Market and Scarcity Challenges

As a globally labor-intensive sector, the Austrian tourism industry requires a continuous stream of motivated and competent personnel. Ellmau’s specialized, high-service environment demands high standards of service delivery, requiring personnel with transversal competencies like communication, self-management, and managerial skills. Large local operations, such as Bergbahnen Wilder Kaiser and major hotels, require substantial staffing throughout the year and seasonally for operations like cable car management, gastronomy, and hospitality.

Securing this workforce, which often includes youth, women, and migrants (reflected in Ellmau’s 24.3% foreign resident population), requires that local employers offer substantial benefits that exceed mandated standards. To attract and retain high-quality talent, operators offer season tickets for the ski area (often for the employee and their partner), shopping discounts, training opportunities, and salaries tailored to specific qualifications and experience. High-end establishments, such as the 5-star superior Hotel Kaiserhof, continually reinforce the need for superior staff quality, recognizing that employee wellbeing underpins the success of the guest experience.

The Industry Response: Internalizing Housing Costs

The most defining local solution to the labor challenge is the industry’s significant investment in employee housing, a response necessitated by the external housing market’s failure to meet local needs.

Major employers have constructed sophisticated staff accommodation facilities. The K-Teamhouse in Ellmau, for instance, offers newly built apartments for singles and couples, complete with amenities such as box spring beds, modern kitchenettes, balconies, and fitness rooms.30 This investment reflects an economic realization that maintaining a “5*superior level” of service necessitates ensuring staff “live like that”.

This substantial investment in internalizing housing costs acts as an economic subsidy for labor stability. It effectively removes the primary burden of housing scarcity from the employees, allowing large tourism operators to stabilize their workforce, mitigating a scarcity problem exacerbated by market forces from which these same operators benefit.

Housing Affordability and the Investment Property Market

Ellmau’s status as a high-profile tourist destination exerts immense pressure on the affordability and availability of residential housing. Global trends indicate that the proliferation of short-term vacation rentals (STRs), easily facilitated by online platforms, removes conventional housing units from the long-term rental market.31 This reduction in long-term supply drives up both home prices and rents for local residents.

Ellmau is identified as an attractive target for real estate investment, specifically for luxury holiday properties. New apartment complexes are marketed based on their exclusive tranquility and proximity to glamour, targeting individuals seeking holiday residences. The presence of foreign capital investment 1 combines with the tendency to convert existing structures into high-yield, short-term visitor accommodations, resulting in severe displacement pressure on conventional residential stock.

The resulting socio-economic paradox is clear: the tourism economy generates the wealth that drives up local housing costs, yet this escalation threatens the availability of the essential workforce required to sustain that prosperity. The industry’s required investment in dedicated staff housing confirms that local affordability challenges have fundamentally restructured the labor management model.

Landscape and Legacy: Agriculture, Forestry, and Local Supply Webs

The operational economy of Ellmau is sustained not only by its high-tech infrastructure but also by the integrated land management and produce of the surrounding alpine environment. Farming and forestry function as critical sub-economies, providing non-tangible assets—aesthetic quality, ecological stability, and logistical security—to the dominant tourism sector.

The Interdependence of Agriculture and Tourism Aesthetics

Alpine agriculture in Tyrol is characterized by small, traditional family farms.34 Although many of these farms may not achieve full self-sufficiency solely through agricultural production, they play an indispensable, compensated role in preserving the region’s cultural and visual identity.

Farming activities, including the management of meadows and pastures extending up steep slopes, are responsible for creating the specific, curated aesthetic that visitors seek. The landscape itself is a core asset that visitors purchase when choosing Tyrol as a destination. To ensure the continuity of these essential land management practices, and to counteract the splitting of estates (which is protected by local “closed farm” laws) 34, farmers rely on supplementary income streams.

These streams include agritourism (holidays on the farm) and direct marketing. Local farms near Ellmau actively participate in direct sales of high-quality, regionally produced goods, including BIO-Beef from Tyrolean husbandry, veal, pork, fresh milk, apple juice, and locally crafted beers.37 This practice links local producers directly to consumers and the local gastronomy sector, ensuring the economic survival of small-scale agriculture while providing an authentic component to the tourism experience.

The Economic Function of Protective Forestry

Forests cover nearly half of Austria’s land area and are crucial to the natural scenery. In Tyrol, however, the economic value of forests is overwhelmingly tied to their protection function. Over 70% of Tyrol’s forests are specifically designated as protection forests.

These protective forests are fundamentally essential for safeguarding human settlements and the high-value socio-economic assets—including roads, hotels, and the multi-million-euro lift infrastructure—from severe natural hazards such as avalanches, landslides, and erosion. This hazard mitigation is a non-negotiable prerequisite for the continued operation and security of the tourism industry.

While Tyrolean forestry has historically relied on species like spruce for economic viability, climate change places immense pressure on the resilience of these protective forests. This requires a proactive transition toward sustainable, “Climate-Smart Mountain Forest” management models to ensure the long-term integrity of the protective function. If climate change were to compromise the health of these forests, the costly tourism infrastructure would face dramatically increased risk, directly threatening the region’s economic foundation. Sustainable forestry is thus an indirect, yet vital, component of long-term economic security.

Gastronomic Authenticity and Supply Chain Strategy

The Tyrolean gastronomy sector is a critical intermediary that translates the efforts of local agriculture into a premium visitor experience, leveraging the region’s AMA Gourmet Region status.

Dishes served in local establishments, ranging from mountain huts to fine restaurants, depend on specific regional products, such as tender flesh from the Tyrolean grey cattle, mountain cheese, and local dairy. Local businesses actively commit to using regional products, strengthening the supply chain integrity and ensuring the authentic regional identity that high-value tourists expect. This strategic integration ensures that the economic activity generated by tourism flows back efficiently to support the local land stewards whose work maintains the appealing character of the environment.

Synthesis and Outlook: Sustaining Alpine Prosperity

The economy of Ellmau is a compelling example of highly specialized regional commerce, successfully balancing high-tech operations with the monetization of cultural and environmental legacy. This prosperity is sustained by an integrated system of aggressive capital investment, proactive climate adaptation, and dedicated management of social and environmental inputs.

The Pillars of Ellmau’s Economic Resilience

Ellmau’s long-term viability is secured by three integrated economic pillars:

1. Technological Superiority and Capital Depth: The commitment to continuous, high-volume investment in infrastructure, such as multi-million-euro lift modernizations and efficient snowmaking facilities, secures market dominance and maintains a high level of operational capacity.11 This investment is a calculated mechanism to overcome the limitations of the alpine environment and ensure competitiveness.
2. Resource Autonomy and Efficiency: By relying on 100% green energy sourced from Tyrolean hydropower, supplemented by on-site photovoltaic and micro-hydro generation 10, the SkiWelt operators insulate their operations from external energy price volatility. Specialized technologies, such as GPS snow management yielding 20-25% resource savings, reinforce the economic rationale for sustainability.
3. Strategic Diversification: The deliberate pursuit of year-round viability through sophisticated, high-value summer activities (retreats, e-biking) and the profitable integration of non-weather-dependent cultural attractions (media tourism via Der Bergdoktor) mitigate the structural risks associated with seasonality and external economic or health shocks.

Navigating Nuance and Growth

The primary structural tension within Ellmau’s successful model is the disparity between the wealth generated by the tourism sector and the increasing cost of living for the local workforce required to maintain that service standard.

The industry’s decision to invest substantially in employee accommodation, such as the K-Teamhouse, represents a significant economic response to the labor-housing crisis. This strategy acknowledges that sustaining a high-quality service environment requires securing the long-term residency of the labor pool, often necessitating that large operators intervene outside the conventional real estate market, which is saturated by luxury investment properties.

The economic survival of small-scale agriculture is also strategically supported because it maintains the specific aesthetic, cultural, and gastronomic identity that the high-value tourism market demands. This reflects a sophisticated understanding that the marketable “product” is the entire, integrated cultural and physical landscape, not just the lift system itself.

The Outlook for Sustainable Long-Term Operation

While the Ellmau economic model demonstrates exceptional adaptive capacity, certain long-term concerns persist, requiring vigilant management:

• Climatic Thresholds: The high reliance on technical snow, regardless of its efficiency, operates within definitive temperature and water availability limits. If global warming pushes the operating temperature window beyond the feasible range for economical snow production or drastically affects the availability of water resources, the current economic foundation will require profound restructuring.
• Social Equity and Cohesion: Maintaining community satisfaction alongside prioritizing the visitor experience is an ongoing challenge. The pressures of a high foreign resident population, expensive real estate, and rapid infrastructural development demand transparent governance and inclusive planning. This ensures that the substantial financial benefits generated by the industry are reinvested in a way that sustains the local quality of life and preserves the community’s integrity, rather than exclusively serving the transient visitor population.

Ellmau’s economic blueprint represents a comprehensive methodology for monetizing the alpine environment through strategic investment and adaptive resource management. The future continuity of this prosperity hinges on maintaining the integrity of this highly interconnected system, where the profitability of the cable car operation relies fundamentally upon the resilience of the protective forest, the dedication of the local farmers, and the sustained availability of a well-supported, skilled workforce.