The Protected Landscape Approach - Centre for Mediterranean ...

The Protected Landscape Approach: Linking Nature, Culture and Community
A final note on landscape
As Phillips writes here, “[l]andscape is universal. It is found everywhere that people and nature
have interacted”. At the same time, our cultural perspective shapes how we understand the idea
of landscape, just as it shapes our view of the idea of wilderness. Writing from very different
parts of the world, many of the authors here challenge us to broaden our view of landscape, and
to consider that many seemingly “untouched” lands are, in fact, cultural landscapes.
For example, the complex landscape heritage of Australia has been shaped over millennia by
the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and over recent centuries by European
occupation. Observing that the first Australians modified the environment through the use of
fire and hunting, gave the landscape its creation stories, and left behind evidence of their culture
in rock art and sacred sites, Lennon argues that the whole of Australia can be considered a
cultural landscape.
Jones et al. write about the “mind maps” of pastoralists in Africa, which shape their view of
the landscapes they inhabit. Their mind maps do not have fixed boundaries or specific land use
designations, but rather reflect the pastoralists’ mobile way of life and flexible resource
management regimes.
Writing about Andean South America, Sarmiento et al. describe a view of the landscape in
which “identity and ethnicity go hand-in-hand with mythical concepts of sacred hills,” and in
which the mountain deities are seen as offering protection to the communities living below
them.
In his discussion of remote areas in the Amazon and coastal wetlands of Brazil, Maretti
argues that even these places are living cultural landscapes. He writes:
… [they] may not be ‘classical’ examples of cultural landscapes (or ‘European types’ of
landscape) – for the marks are less visible to the ‘non-local’ and ‘untrained’ eye, which
may not be prepared in these settings to see the long interactions between humans and
nature over time ….. But what then are lands that are divided by paths, shaped by use,
with their limits defined by customs and respected by local communities, (as, for example,
with the significance of trees) if not landscapes – cultural landscapes – and therefore
ideally managed through a landscape approach
While the cultural features of a landscape may be hard for the outsider to discern, they are
kept alive and understood well by those living closest to the place and its resources. As
stewards, local communities bring their wealth of knowledge, traditional management systems,
innovation and love of place to managing these landscapes. Maretti’s question prompts us to
consider that the protected landscape approach may be an appropriate option in places where
the assumption might have been otherwise. The rich array of experience presented in the
coming chapters confirms the value of this approach in very different settings, offers guidance
on how it can be tailored to new contexts, and highlights its potential to meet future conser -
vation challenges.
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