The Swiss mountain village that inspired a Nobel Prize and digital governance

Törbel is a small Swiss mountain village that has attracted the attention of international scientists. Their findings on how mountain farmers utilise water and pastures are shaping the way science addresses collective digital resources today. In 1483, Swiss farmers who lived in a mountain village concluded a contract on water and pasture utilisation. This has proven so sustainable that open-source advocates from the Mozilla Foundation, known for its web browser Firefox, today want to apply the same principles to shared digital resources, or what are called "digital commons" today. How did this come about? Large meadows and forests in many regions of modern-day Switzerland have been managed collectively by local populations for over 500 years. In mountain regions in particular, these corporations and communities still manage common agricultural areas, known as Allmenden (in German), according to clear rules and sustainable principles. Farmers did exactly this for centuries in the ...