Is social coesion affecting heritage landscape perservation and interpretation?

Abstract

Usually heritage landscape is seen as a natural and a cultural resource. But, in the base of those landscapes we can meet social practices, an intangible heritage that give cohesion to the natural and cultural aspects. Our scope it's to debate ideas comparing examples. Between the well preserved Chinese rice heritage landscapes, supported by millenary social and farming practices, and the abandoned European terraces, an essential social question emerges: the preservation of the landscape heritage is supported not only by natural and cultural elements but also by social practices, technical knowledge and ways of understanding Nature. Efforts to the heritage landscape maintenance has been limited to the natural and cultural elements preservation, forgetting often the referred social cohesion factors. To safeguard heritage, the cultural landscape should be duly interpreted which means the understanding of the ecological, social and even economic functionality of the landscape structures.