Landscape management and traditional knowledge for communities sustainable development

Abstract

Cultural heritage is a concept in evolution that was constantly revised over time. In the last 60 years we have experienced a gradual shift of interests, scopes and objectives from single pieces of “art” to ecosystems in their entireness. The heritage concept moved gradually from the idea of “monument” to that of urban environment. Thus we have come to consider historic cities in their entirety and, subsequently, to extend our interest to the territory as a whole and to the concept of landscape. Indeed environment and culture form a unique and whole entity in which landscape represents the expression of the relationshi p between the people and their habitat. The comprehension of the deep relation between material and immaterial cultures and structures requires also the understanding of the processes, the techniques, the traditional empirical knowledge that layered and shaped the human landscapes over time. Today traditional knowledge is still able to show us an alternative strategy to current development patterns showing how to interact with the environment enhancing its resource potential instead of exhausting it. In particular many disci plines contributed to define new concepts: physical and human geography, urban planning, social sciences and in general all the natural sciences played a role in this shift from finite archeology, art and architecture history, to a broader idea of ecosystem, biodiversity, geo-anthropogenic landscape, human habitat, etc.