The Protected Landscape Approach - Centre for Mediterranean ...

The Protected Landscape Approach: Linking Nature, Culture and Community
The value of an integrated approach drawing on all the protected area categories and
using a mosaic of these designations in order to sustain linkages in the landscape and
seascape.
Workshop participants, who came from many different regions, noted that many of the
world’s biodiversity hotspots are linked to places where the activities of humans over
time have contributed to the biodiversity in the landscape. They argued the need for a
greater understanding of the link between cultural diversity and biodiversity. Finally,
they found that Categories V and VI, and international designations such as World
Heritage Cultural Landscapes and Biosphere Reserves, are particularly well suited to
accommodate the particular conditions of landscapes shaped by people over time (see
also Box 1).
Most importantly, as discussed earlier in this chapter, workshop participants advocated a
“landscape approach” and began to articulate the elements of such an approach.
The World Parks Congress produced recommendations on a broad array of issues and
challenges facing protected areas in the coming decade. A number of these focused on themes
relevant to the protected landscapes approach, including recommendations on integrated
landscape management, governance, indigenous and mobile peoples, World Heritage, and
community-conserved areas.
Experience from diverse regions of the world
Drawing on experience from many countries and regions, the chapters in this book illustrate
how the protected landscape approach can work in very different settings, addressing a variety
of conservation objectives and challenges.
Adrian Phillips and Mechtild Rössler, in their respective chapters, present case-studies of
World Heritage Cultural Landscapes in the Philippines, Austria, Hungary, Portugal, Iceland,
Italy, Lebanon, Nigeria, Russia and Lithuania. Rössler observes that the inclusion of Cultural
Landscapes within the World Heritage Convention has contributed to the recognition of
intangible values and the heritage of local and indigenous communities, and to the value of
traditional land systems that represent the continuity of people working the land over centuries
and millennia.
Also in this volume, Augusto Villalón and Jane Lennon further explore experience with the
World Heritage Cultural Landscape designation. In her discussion of two Australian cases –
Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park and Kosciuszko National Park – Lennon finds that World
Heritage Cultural Landscape designation has brought public attention to Australian landscapes
deemed of global importance. By enhancing the value placed on cultural heritage, including
intangible values, and recognising the importance of management by indigenous people,
Lennon observes that the Cultural Landscape designation has contributed to the evolution of
heritage protection in Australia toward increasing integration of natural and cultural values.
Writing about two continuing cultural landscapes in the Philippines, Villalón explores the
challenges of balancing progress and tradition. For the Rice Terraces of the Philippines
Cordilleras, the first continuing cultural landscape to be inscribed on the World Heritage list,
the future depends on continuing the culture-based traditional practices that have created and
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