LANDSCAPE DISCOURSES OF AMENITY AND RENEWABLE ENERGY DEVELOPMENT IN VITICULTURE REGIONS IN CANADA

Abstract

Shifts from fossil fuels toward renewable energy (RE) are happening worldwide. Although RE contributes to global warming, this shift introduces profound changes to landscapes. Moreover, RE transitions are often happening in rural areas which are also sometimes serving amenity functions and becoming destinations for different types of users. This introduces complexities such as when decision making around RE development. Emerging grape and wine production landscapes serve amenity and production purposes, and this study, divided into two parts, is designed to understand the rural wine amenity experience and perceptions of RE development in such landscapes using case studies of Nova Scotia (NS), Ontario (ON) and British Columbia (BC). Textual and image-based representations of viniculture regions posted on Instagram by vineyard visitors and marketers are used and mixed methods, including content analysis, statistical analysis and visual impact analysis are conducted on the data. The result indicates: 1) that a gap exists in the ecosystem services (ES) framework around terroir, 2) that vineyard experiences are recursively recreated on Instagram, though visitors care as much or more about social relations as they do the terroir that preoccupies marketers; and, 3) the addition of RE infrastructures does not seem to disturb the vineyard experience.