Jessica Brown, Nora Mitchell and Michael Beresford
This book is about an approach to protected areas that is gaining growing recognition and that offers the potential to meet many conservation challenges. The protected landscape approach links conservation of nature and culture, and fosters stewardship by people living in the landscape. While grounded in experience with Category V Protected Landscapes/Seascapes,1 this approach is broader than a single protected area category or designation. Rather, it relies on different tools and designations to achieve protection, and on an array of processes and traditional systems to sustain people's relationship to the land.
Landscapes, the places where people and nature meet, are shaped by the inter-relationships between humans and their environment. In turn, the natural setting has shaped how people live, their settlement patterns, livelihoods, cultural practices and beliefs – indeed their very way of life. Landscapes encompass history and the present, the physical as well as the intangible. As Adrian Phillips writes in this volume, landscape can be seen as a meeting ground, between nature and people, between the past and the present, and between tangible and intangible values.
Protected landscapes are cultural landscapes that have co-evolved with the human societies inhabiting them. They are protected areas based on the interactions of people and nature over time. Living examples of cultural heritage, these landscapes are rich in biological diversity and other natural values not in spite of but rather because of the presence of people. It follows that their future relies on sustaining people's relationship to the land and its resources.
The traditional patterns of land use that have created many of the world's cultural landscapes contribute to biodiversity, support ecological processes, provide important environmental services, and have proven sustainable over centuries. Protected landscapes serve as living models of sustainable use of land and resources, and offer important lessons for sustainable development.
Shaped by cultural forces, landscapes are central to the cultures of the world and, indeed, to our identity as people. In addition to their tangible physical qualities, they possess intangible or “associative” values – among them spiritual, cultural, and aesthetic values. As Mechtild Rössler writes in this volume, cultural landscapes “represent a tightly woven net of relationships that are the essence of culture and people's identity.”
The cultural and natural values of these landscapes are bound together. Cultural landscapes are at the interface between biological and cultural diversity, as Rössler observes. It is this complex mix of cultural and natural values, of tangible and intangible heritage, that makes protection of landscapes so vital, and at the same time so challenging. It requires an approach that is interdisciplinary, inclusive, and that engages people and communities.
The concept of a protected landscape approach emerged in a workshop held at the Vth World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa (September 2003) and in discussions among members of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) Protected Landscapes Task Force. Participants found that, while Category V Protected Landscapes and Seascapes are the primary tool for creating these areas, strategies to protect landscapes are often broader than a single designation, typically drawing on a combination of protected area designations and tools. Importantly, these strategies must respond to the local context and its cultural, natural and social features.
As places that have been shaped by the interactions between people and the land, protected landscapes rely on processes that sustain this relation ship. With that in mind, the term protected landscape approach is used in this volume, encompassing the diverse strategies needed to achieve this challenging goal, examples of which are presented in this book.
The protected landscape approach recognises that the cultural and natural values of landscapes are inextricably linked, and that the communities living in or near these landscapes are central to sustaining them. It embraces the central role of indigenous and local communities as stewards of the landscape, and puts them at the heart of management of these protected areas, sharing in the benefits and responsibilities of conservation. It is an inclusive approach, relying on participatory processes and partnerships that link a diverse array of stakeholders in steward ship and sustainability.
The Sacred Valley of the Incas (Peru), whose agricultural landscape was shaped by pre-Colombian Inca cultures, today is managed by Quechua communities who have created El Parque de la Papa, or Potato Park. The traditional patterns of land use that have created this cultural landscape contribute to biodiversity, support ecological processes, and have proven sustainable over centuries. Alejandro Argumedo
The protected landscape approach takes a holistic and inter-disciplinary view of the environment. It emphasises the integration of humans and nature, not the attempted isolation of one from the other. It presents an opportunity to understand better the relationship between people and nature, and to learn from these places where harmonious relationships can occur, and sustainable use can be modelled. It accommodates different concepts of nature conservation and strategies for protection. It recognises that to conserve biodiversity in many parts of the world, we must pay attention also to cultural diversity.
The protected landscape approach can provide valuable models of how to integrate biodiversity conservation, cultural heritage protection and sustainable use of resources. It is an approach that brings conservation “home” to the places where people live and work.
An approach that emphasises lived-in landscapes should in no way be seen to diminish the importance of strictly protected areas, nor should it be viewed as a rejection of other conservation models. Rather it is a complementary model, part of a range of strategies for achieving conservation objectives – and one that is particularly appropriate in settings where biodiversity and cultural practices are linked, and where management must accommodate traditional uses, land ownership patterns and the need to sustain local livelihoods.
Protected landscapes can contribute to the viability of more strictly protected areas (such as Category Ia Strict Nature Reserves and Category II National Parks), by strengthening linkages within the broader landscape and connectivity among protected areas. Particularly when conservation objectives are to be met over a large area of land (often referred to as “landscapescale” conservation), strategies are needed that can accommodate different land uses, ownership patterns and management objectives. Typically this involves a variety of conservation tools and designations. In such a mosaic, protected area designations, such as Category V Protected Landscapes and Category VI Managed Resource Protected Areas, complement more strictly protected areas, and can enhance their impact.
Several of the contributors to this book offer their perspectives on a protected landscape approach. Writing of pastoralist communities in Africa, Brian Jones, Moses Okello and Bobby Wishetimi call for conservation thinking that puts people back into the landscape. In a coda to their paper, Fausto Sarmiento, Guillermo Rodríguez and Alejandro Argumedo call for a “new approach of sustaining living landscapes for conservation in cooperation with the communities that have created and inhabit them”. In his chapter, Claudio Maretti proposes several elements for this approach.
Central to the protected landscape approach is the idea of stewardship, which is based on individual and community responsibility. Landscapes typically encompass a mosaic of land ownership: private, public and, in many countries, customary or communal ownership. It follows that protection of these landscapes inevitably must rely on fostering stewardship by those who own and/or live on the land.
Stewardship means, simply, people taking care of the earth. In its broadest sense, it refers to the essential role individuals and communities play in the careful management of our common natural and cultural wealth for now and future generations. More specifically, it can be defined as “efforts to create, nurture and enable responsibility in landowners and resource users to manage and protect land and its natural and cultural heritage” (Brown and Mitchell, 1999).
A shepherd tends his flock in a mountainous region of Central Slovakia. Jessica Brown
Stewardship taps our basic human impulse to care for our home and its surroundings – be it a parcel of land, a neighbourhood, or an historic monument, or the larger area of a watershed, mountain range or stretch of coast line. It builds on our sense of obligation to other people: our family, our community, and future generations. By fostering individual and community responsibility, stewardship puts conservation in the hands of the people most affected by it.
The protected landscape approach engages local communities in stewardship of landscapes by reinforcing individual and community responsibility for resource management. It builds on existing institutional responsibilities; and encourages flexible arrangements for management of resources, including collaborative management agreements and the range of private land stewardship tools.
Protected areas are the cornerstone of conservation policy, an inter-generational legacy of the planet's most valuable assets and special places. Covering over 10% of the earth's surface, the global estate includes over 100,000 formally protected areas. As eloquently expressed in the Durban Accord, a statement from the 3,000 participants in the Vth World Parks Congress, protected areas are:
Those places most inspirational and spiritual, most critical to the survival of species and ecosystems, most crucial in safeguarding food, air and water, most essential in stabilizing climate, most unique in cultural and natural heritage and therefore most deserving of humankind's special care.
The roots of the protected area idea go back thousands of years – long before governments created national parks – to the conservation regimes that human societies have been devising for millennia, among which are community-conserved areas (Borrini-Feyerabend, 2002). However, the modern foundation for protected areas was established in the late nineteenth century, with the designation of Yellowstone National Park in the United States.
A major milestone in the history of environmental conservation, Yellowstone National Park shaped the perception of protected areas as uninhabited wilderness. Its creation marked the start of one of the greatest conservation achievements of the twentieth century, laying the foundation for the creation of a world-wide protected area network of national parks, nature reserves and other kinds of strictly protected areas. The “Yellowstone model” is seen as representing the preservation of large and wild areas by governments, where people are allowed as visitors, but not as residents. While in many places the public image of protected areas is still rooted in this national park model, in reality the protected area idea has evolved, moving beyond a single model to include many different kinds of protected areas.
Today the world's protected areas vary in almost every respect, including the purposes for which they are managed, their size, the kind of places and resources they protect, and the management body responsible (Phillips, 2002). For this reason, IUCN – The World Conservation Union has created a category system, which identifies six categories of protected areas according to management objectives (IUCN, 1994; see Appendix 1). It defines protected areas as follows:
An area of land and/or sea especially dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity and of natural and associated cultural resources and managed through legal or other effective means.
The Alinya Mountain Reserve, the largest private reserve in Catalonia, Spain, is owned by the Fundació Territori i Paisatge-Caixa Catalunya. The rich agri-forestal mosaic of this mountainous landscape is characteristic of the region. Fundació Territori i Paisatge
Within this system are Category V Protected Landscapes/Seascapes – protected areas based on the interaction of people and nature, and the principal designation for lived-in landscapes. This category of protected areas, along with Category VI Managed Resource Protected Areas, is introduced briefly in the next section, and explored in more detail in this book's chapters.
Emerging trends in conservation and protected area management set the stage for a greater emphasis on protecting landscapes, and for a new approach that engages people in stewardship and embraces the interactions of people and nature.
Conservation strategies are becoming increasingly bio-regional. The field of conservation biology has highlighted the pressing need to work on the scale of ecosystems and the wider landscape to conserve biological diversity. Worldwide, there is growing recognition that protected areas can no longer be treated as islands, but must be seen in a larger context. The phenomenon of “paper parks” – protected areas in name only – has demonstrated forcefully that approaches that rely solely on regulation and enforcement are costly and too often meet with failure. Recognising that protected areas cannot be viewed in isolation from the communities within and near them, protected area managers are adopting inclusive models, in which collaborative management, partnerships and community-based approaches play a growing role (Brown and Mitchell, 2000a).
An important trend, basic to the protected landscape approach articulated here, is a new understanding of the linkages between nature and culture: that healthy landscapes are shaped by human culture as well as the forces of nature, that rich biological diversity often coincides with cultural diversity, and that conservation cannot be undertaken without the involvement of those people closest to the resources.
In the chapter that follows this one, Adrian Phillips presents the elements of a new paradigm for protected areas.
Landscapes may be protected by a variety of designations and tools, including some that are not formally recognised within national or international protected area systems, and yet play an important role in sustaining landscapes. Often protected landscapes are located adjacent to, or within, other categories of protected areas, as part of a mosaic of protection.
As noted earlier, a primary tool is through formal designation as a Protected Landscape/Seascape – Category V in the IUCN category system (see Appendix 2). According to the 1994 IUCN Guidelines for Protected Area Management Categories, the definition of a Category V Protected Landscape/Seascape is:
… an area of land, with coast and sea as appropriate, where the interaction of people and nature over time has produced an area of distinct character with significant aesthetic, ecological and/or cultural value, and often with high biological diversity.2
The Category V designation explicitly recognises that “safeguarding the integrity of this traditional interaction is vital to the protection, maintenance and evolution of such an area”, making Category V Protected Landscapes both a designation and a process aimed at sustaining people's relation ship to the landscape.
In this book Adrian Phillips reviews experience with the Category V designation globally, and explores the relationship between Category V protected areas and those recognised as World Heritage Cultural Landscapes – another important designation in protecting landscapes globally. Since 1992 the UNESCO World Heritage Committee has recognised and protected Cultural Landscapes selected based on the outstanding value of the interaction between people and their environment. The Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention, an international treaty, define Cultural Landscapes as:
…illustrative of the evolution of human society and settlement over time, under the influence of the physical constraints and/or opportunities presented by their natural environment and of successive social, economic and cultural forces, both external and internal and as a diversity of manifestations of the interaction between humankind and its natural environment (UNESCO, 1996). (See Appendix 4).
In her chapter Mechtild Rössler discusses global experience with World Heritage Cultural Landscapes in the context of broader landscape linkages. She observes that cultural landscapes are a symbol of the growing recognition of the intrinsic links between communities and their past heritage, and between humankind and its natural environment. She notes the important role of these exceptional sites as a centrepiece of many protected area systems, and their ability to complement Category V sites, as well as those protected through other designations discussed in this book.
Category V Protected Landscapes and World Heritage Cultural Landscapes share much common ground – especially their focus on landscapes where human relationships with the natural environment over time define their essential character. However, there are important distinctions between the two designations, in particular related to how they are selected. In designation of Category V Protected Landscapes, the natural environment, biodiversity conservation, and ecosystem integrity have been the primary emphases. In contrast, the emphasis in World Heritage Cultural Landscape designation has been on human history, continuity of cultural traditions, and social values and aspirations (Mitchell and Buggey, 2001). As Adrian Phillips further notes in his chapter, “outstanding universal value” is a fundamental criterion in recognising a World Heritage Cultural Landscape, while the emphasis in Category V Protected Landscapes is on sites of national, or sub-national significance.
The protected landscape approach can be appropriate to diverse settings, including those in developing countries, because it:
links people's needs and biodiversity conservation;
typically comprises a mosaic of land ownership patterns, including private and communally owned property;
can accommodate diverse management regimes, including customary laws governing resource management and traditional practices;
has important specific objectives related to conservation of cultural heritage;
seeks to bring benefits to local communities and contribute to their well-being, through the provision of environmental goods and services; and
has proven to work well in certain indigenous territories where strict protected areas have failed.
Sources: Brown and Mitchell, 2000a; Oviedo and Brown, 1999.
Other protected area designations can play an important role in protecting landscapes, although their management objectives differ. One example is Category VI Managed Resource Protected Areas (see Appendix 3), which shares with Category V an emphasis on sustainable use of natural resources. However, they differ in that Category V protected areas involve landscapes that typically have been modified extensively by people over time, Category VI protected areas emphasise areas with predominantly unmodified natural systems, to be managed so that at least two-thirds remain that way (Phillips, 2002).
Drawing on Brazil's experience with extractive reserves, Claudio Maretti argues that landscape protection must be viewed in the local context – social, cultural and natural – and that for certain lived-in landscapes the Category VI designation may be more appropriate. In the Brazilian Amazon, for example, communities established Category VI extractive reserves in order to protect their lived-in, working landscapes.
Another important example considered here is the Biosphere Reserve designation, an instrument of UNESCO's Man in the Biosphere (MaB) programme, dedicated to sustainable development and the conservation of biodiversity, as well as the support of environmental education, research, and the monitoring of the most important natural areas of the world. The chapter by Clayton F. Lino and Marilia Britto de Moraes considers experience from the Mata Atlantica Biosphere Reserve to explore how this designation supports large-scale conservation and, at the same time, helps to sustain traditional landscapes and seascapes in Brazil's coastal zone.
Central to the protected landscape approach, though not expressed in any formal designation, are the array of strategies that indigenous and local communities have been using for millennia to protect land and natural and cultural resources important to them. Long ignored by governments, and not included in the accounting of official protected areas, community-conserved areas are now receiving growing attention in the protected areas field. In their chapter Edmund Barrow and Neema Pathak introduce community-conserved areas, which they define as
…modified and natural ecosystems, whether human-influenced or not, and which contain significant biodiversity values, ecological services, and cultural values, that are voluntarily conserved by communities, through customary laws and institutions.
Community-conserved areas have long played a role in how communities all over the world care for the landscapes they inhabit (Borrini-Feyerabend, Kothari and Oviedo, 2004).
Finally, private land conservation tools (such as conservation easements and management agreements) and public-private partnerships play an important role in protecting landscapes, as discussed in several of the chapters in this volume.
While Protected Landscapes have come relatively late to the protected area scene, they play a growing role in national systems of protected areas, and in regional and global conservation strategies. Significant progress has been made over the last 25 years, running parallel to broader trends in conservation and in new approaches to protected areas generally. Selected milestones in advancing this approach, with particular reference to Category V protected areas, are presented in Box 2.
In 1978 IUCN, through its then Commission on National Parks and Protected Areas, published a report on “Categories, Objectives and Criteria for Protected Areas,” which established ten categories, including protected landscapes, formally recognising the value of lived-in, working landscapes as protected areas.
In 1987 IUCN and the UK Countryside Commission co-hosted a symposium on Protected Landscapes (Lake District, UK), which adopted the “Lake District Declaration,” a statement of principles underpinning the value of the protected landscape approach.
In 1988 an IUCN General Assembly resolution recognised protected landscapes as “living models of sustainable use” and urged governments and others to give more attention to Category V protected areas.
In 1990 the International Centre for Protected Landscapes was established in Aberystwyth, Wales, UK.
In 1992 the first publication providing guidance on the protected landscapes approach was published. Written by the late P.H.C. (Bing) Lucas, and published by IUCN, the Guide on Protected Landscapes for Policy-makers and Planners was prepared as a contribution to the IVth World Congress on National Parks and Protected Areas, (Caracas, Venezuela).
At the IVth World Congress on National Parks and Protected Areas (1992), following critical review of the IUCN protected area management categories, IUCN acknowledged the need to give more attention to protected area models based upon people living alongside nature.
Also in 1992 the World Heritage Committee, after nearly a decade of debate, agreed that cultural landscapes could meet the criteria of “outstanding universal value” and revised the World Heritage Guidelines to include a Cultural Landscapes category, an important development in linking conservation of natural and cultural heritage.
In 1994 IUCN published its Guidelines for Protected Area Management Categories, which put Category V areas – now formally known as Protected Landscapes and Seascapes – on an equal footing with other categories of protected areas.
In 1996 the first IUCN World Conservation Congress (Montreal, Canada), adopted a resolution regarding conservation on privately owned land, with special reference to Category V protected areas.
In 1999 the Conservation Study Institute (US National Park Service and QLF/Atlantic Center for the Environment), in cooperation with IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas, convened an international workshop on Stewardship of Protected Landscapes (Woodstock, Vermont, USA). As a result, the WCPA Steering Committee created a Commission Task Force on Protected Landscapes to draw together global expertise and promote the approach.
The WCPA Protected Landscapes Task Force, working with partner organizations, has produced several publications (see examples below), convened international meetings (e.g., working session and seminar, Stow-on-the-Wold, England, UK, 2001) and regional workshops (e.g., Andean landscapes – Baeza, Ecuador, 2001), and led a workshop at the Vth World Parks Congress.
In 2002 IUCN published Management Guidelines for IUCN Category V Protected Areas: Protected Landscapes/Seascapes (Phillips, 2002), as part of the IUCN/Cardiff University series on best practice in protected area management. Other recent publications coming out of the work of the Protected Landscapes Task Force include an issue of the journal PARKS on Category V Protected Areas (Beresford, Ed. 2003) and an issue of George Wright Forum on Stewardship of Protected Landscapes (Brown, Mitchell and Sarmiento, Eds. 2000).
Recent international symposia have highlighted the importance of cultural landscapes, including a 2002 session on “Cultural Landscapes – the Challenges of Conservation,” convened by UNESCO on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention (Ferrara, Italy, 2002); and “Learning from World Heritage” a US/ICOMOS symposium on cultural and ecological landscapes of global significance (Natchitoches, Louisiana, USA, 2004).
At the Vth World Parks Congress (Durban, South Africa, 2003), the WCPA Protected Landscapes Task Force convened a workshop on Protected Landscapes and Seascapes. A Congress workshop stream on Linkages in the Landscape/Seascape and cross-cutting themes on Local Communities and Equity and World Heritage, respectively, highlighted the importance of landscape-scale conservation, community involvement in protected areas, and cultural landscapes, points formalized in recommendations and in the Durban Accord.
Sources: Phillips, 2002; Mitchell and Buggey, 2001.
The topic of Protected Landscapes and Seascapes featured prominently at the Vth World Parks Congress (WPC) in 2003, in venues that included workshops, panels, and debate.
The World Parks Congress recognised the important role of indigenous and local communities in creating and managing protected areas. Far from being a side topic, the role of communities was a central part of the debate in Durban on protected areas and their future. Communities and Equity was a cross-cutting theme of the Congress, and was on the agenda as never before, integrated into each of the seven workshop streams, and addressed in plenary discussions and in Congress products such as the Durban Accord. This integration came about thanks to the vision of the WPC steering committee and the work of members of the Theme on Indigenous and Local Communities, Equity and Protected Areas (TILCEPA), an inter-commission group of WCPA and the IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP). The participation of community and tribal leaders from around the world greatly enriched discussions at the Congress.
Several sessions in WPC Stream 1 (Linkages in the Landscape and Seascape) focused on Protected Landscapes and Seascapes. The Linkages in the Landscape and Seascape stream focused on the challenge of designing new ecological networks for a better integration of protected areas in the global landscape and seascape, investigating the application of the ecosystem approach to protected areas and the new governance mechanisms necessary to achieve this. It recognised that protected areas need to be connected or reconnected to the surrounding landscape in order to meet conservation goals, and to ensure effective land, water and marine ecosystem planning, and noted that good ecological science must be coupled with an understanding that cultural and biological diversity are inextricably linked. The Stream on Linkages in the Landscape and Seascape looked at five key elements of linkages to and from protected areas – ecological, economic, institutional, cultural, as well as the effectiveness of these linkages in benefiting protected areas.3
A panel on the The Role of Communities in Sustaining Linkages in the Landscape and Seascape highlighted the experience of traditional communities in managing landscapes, with special emphasis on that of mobile peoples. At a joint session of Stream 1 and the Stream on Governance (New Ways of Working Together), the panel explored the various institutional and management arrangements for environmental management at the community level in pastoralist societies, as well as some of the problems that face mobile communities in terms of lost power, lost access and lost mobility. One conclusion of the session was the need for a more holistic approach that integrates wider landscape requirements with those at the community level and which, in turn, requires a much greater understanding of the social aspects of conservation issues.
Spanning three sessions, the workshop on Protecting Landscapes and Seascapes: IUCN Category V, World Heritage Cultural Landscapes and Other Designations sought to demonstrate how the Protected Landscape/Seascape concept can work effectively in different settings, using a variety of designations and other tools. Overview presentations set the context for how designations such as Category V, Category VI, World Heritage Cultural Landscapes and Biosphere Reserves protect landscapes globally. Through case-study presentations and small group discussions, workshop participants explored the central role of communities in protected areas and in managing linkages in the landscape and seascape. Small group discussions explored experience and new opportunities in regions including Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America. The workshop included a debate on Protected Landscapes and the IUCN Category System, which considered the role of Category V and VI designations with respect to other categories of Protected Areas.
Key points emerging from discussions in the workshop on Protecting Landscapes and Seascapes included:
The important role of Categories V and VI within the IUCN system of protected areas management categories, noting their ability to complement other protected area categories and maintain and restore biological diversity, while accommodating the relationship between people and nature.
The role played by communities in conserving important ecological linkages in the broader landscape, such as watersheds and the terrestrial-marine interface, as well as biodiversity.
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.
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 maintain the landscape. He describes a rich array of culture-nature connections, including intricate terracing and irrigation systems, the planting of forest parcels ringing each terrace group, and the spiritual practices of the Ifugao culture. The challenge, Villalón argues, is for local communities to move forward into the 21st century, while maintaining their culture and traditions.
In Nepal, half of the country's protected areas include settlements and farmlands, and all national parks are adjacent to areas with high populations. Prabhu Budhathoki writes that since the inception of its protected area system, Nepal has had to adopt a broad landscape approach, linking local people with resource conservation and directing the benefits of resource conservation to them. He discusses the case of the Terai Arc Landscape Conservation Initiative, an effort to link 11 protected areas to protect critical habitat for many species, including tigers, rhino and elephants. Given the area's mosaic of land use practices and the livelihood needs of mountain communities, Budhathoki observes that efforts to scale up conservation initiatives to a larger landscape level are relying on the principles of partnerships, inclusion and linkages.
The challenges of protecting landscapes and seascapes in Brazil's coastal zone are discussed in the chapter by Clayton Lino and Marilia Britto de Moraes. They present the cases of the Mata Atlantica Biosphere Reserve, an international designation under the MaB programme, and the federally designated Cananéia-Iguape-Peruíbe Area de Proteção Ambiental (APA). A uniquely Brazilian model, the APA, or Environmental Protection Area, is well suited to management of working landscapes, the authors argue, given its emphasis on participatory and democratic approaches to management, reliance on stewardship by local communities, and ability to be flexible and adapt to different contexts. Comparing the APA and Biosphere Reserve models, Lino and Britto de Moraes write that these designations are complementary, working in harmony with each other and with other kinds of protected areas, such as Category II National Parks, to manage natural resources in the coastal zone while involving local communities.
Fernando de Noronha, in the Mata Atlantica Biosphere Reserve (Brazil). In Brazil's coastal zone, complementary designations such as Biosphere Reserves and Areas de Proteção Ambiental (Environmental Protected Areas) work together to protect landscapes and seascapes. Clayton F. Lino
Also drawing on the Brazilian experience, Claudio Maretti writes about the role of Category VI extractive reserves in protecting landscapes. The Chico Mendes extractive reserve (Brazilian Amazon) and the coastal Mandira extractive reserve (south-eastern Brazil) are examples of landscapes created by and belonging to local communities, he argues. Reflecting on the courage of these communities when in response to threats to these places they created extractive reserves, Maretti stresses that local communities and their activities related to natural resources present an opportunity, rather than a problem, in developing an overall nature conservation strategy.
Giles Romulus explores the applicability of the various protected area management categories to the situation of Small Island Developing States in the Caribbean. This chapter presents two cases from Saint Lucia: the Praslin Protected Landscape and the Soufriere Marine Management Area. Romulus argues that Categories V and VI are most appropriate to the needs of Small Island Developing States, and that effective management of natural and cultural resources should be based on the principles of equity, participation and sustainability. Also in that chapter, a box by Wil Maheia on the Maya Mountain Marine Corridor/Port Honduras Marine Reserve illustrates the role of an NGO working with local communities to create a protected area.
North American experience with protected landscapes is described in the chapter by Nora Mitchell, Jacquelyn Tuxill, Guy Swinnerton, Susan Buggey and Jessica Brown. The authors observe a growing appreciation of the conservation values of lived-in landscapes in the United States and Canada, and a broadening of protected area systems in both countries to include a greater diversity of sites, and an array of management partnerships. Their chapter presents examples from diverse settings in the United States and Canada, and documents a growing appreciation of the importance of partnerships, community engagement and participatory governance models. They observe that the term “protected landscapes” refers not only to particular sites, but to a process that guides and accommodates change, and this represents a fundamental shift in thought and practice in the two countries.
In the United Kingdom, with its long history of human settlement and dense population, and with almost all land and water in some form of multiple use, conservation effort has always focused on lived-in landscapes. In this book Adrian Phillips and Richard Partington review the UK's half-century of experience with Category V protected areas, which include National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs), Regional Parks and National Scenic Areas. England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are adopting different strategies, illustrating a varied approach to pursuing social, economic and environmental aims within their protected landscapes. Phillips and Partington write that in the UK it is recognised that protected areas will not survive, nor achieve their aims, without local support – all the more necessary given that many people live in these Category V protected areas and play an active role in their management and protection.
Case studies from Central Europe of two Czech Protected Landscapes – the Bílé Karpaty (southern Moravia) and the Jizersky hory (northern Bohemia) – demonstrate the contributions of the stewardship approach to rural economic development, community revitalization and fostering civil society in the post-Communist societies of the region. In their discussion of innovative projects in the protected landscapes of these two mountainous regions, Miroslav Kundrata and Blažena Hušková observe that an approach that reinforces local people's relationship to nature, supports their resources and traditions, and encourages sensitive management of the landscape can contribute to economic strengthening of rural areas. They also note the important role played by NGOs in bringing new vision and innovation to traditionally conservative rural areas, and the value of international exchange in further advancing these community-based initiatives.
In their chapter on community-conserved areas (CCAs) Edmund Barrow and Neema Pathak discuss the efforts of rural people to conserve areas of land and biodiversity through management systems that have evolved over centuries. While the history of this kind of conservation is much older than government-managed protected areas, Barrow and Pathak note that an emphasis on “official” protected areas has tended to overlook the contribution of CCAs. They present examples of community-conserved areas from Asia, South America and Africa that illustrate the importance of cultural, utilitarian and sacred associations in protecting landscapes and biodiversity. Their chapter highlights the importance of communities' spiritual association with nature, and the contribution of sacred sites, such as sacred groves, to protecting landscapes.
These themes of spiritual associations with nature and sacred sites are explored in the chapter on Andean South America, a region rich in landscapes shaped by traditional land uses that have proven sustainable over centuries. Fausto Sarmiento, Guillermo Rodríguez and Alejandro Argumedo write of Andean landscapes that culture and nature are interlocked in a closely knit fabric where the resulting mosaics of land uses have provided diversity and stability to the ecology of mountain landscapes. Their case-studies from Peru, Ecuador and Colombia illustrate the role of indigenous communities and colono communities in sustaining landscapes. They argue the need for conservation based on traditional knowledge practices and innovation systems, in order to protect local landscapes while providing for livelihoods.
In their chapter on experience from Kenya and Namibia, Brian Jones, Moses Okello and Bobby Wishitemi describe how pastoralist communities have for centuries been presiding over landscapes now recognised as important for biodiversity. The land-uses of these communities and the sustainable nature of their grazing management regimes have helped to preserve landscapes that still provide important habitat for wildlife. They argue that the protected landscape model can offer a new vision for conservation and rural development in the region that does not displace people from their lands, nor cause them to lose access to resources important to their livelihoods.
Because protected landscapes represent an integrated and holistic approach to conservation, they require special management styles and skills, according to Elizabeth Hughes. In her chapter on building leadership and professionalism, Hughes discusses a broad array of training needs to build the leadership qualities and skills required for management of protected landscapes. She presents case studies of programmes that include academic and professional training, international exchange, and partnerships between protected areas, and argues that building a high level of professionalism is critical if we are to achieve conservation of natural and cultural resources within a framework of sustainable development.
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 conservation challenges.
1Category V in Guidelines for Protected Area Management Categories (IUCN, 1994).
2For a comprehensive introduction to Category V protected areas, and guidance for managing these areas, refer to Management Guidelines for IUCN Category V Protected Areas: Protected Landscapes/Seascapes (Phillips, 2002).
3From report on the Linkages in the Landscape and Seascape Stream, posted at www.iucn.org/themes/wcpa/wpc2003/english/programme/workshops/linkages.htm