The landscape as an evolutionary resource and guardian of collective memory: a living infrastructure capable of responding to the challenges of the future.

I European rural landscapes They are the result of a dialogue between humans and the environment that began centuries ago and contains many more answers than it seems to contain. Traditional knowledge and practices constitute a stratification of local ecological knowledge that shapes a resilient infrastructure, capable of mitigating the risks deriving fromabandonment of the lands and loss of biodiversity.

What may seem like harmless expanses of fields, in reality, watch over a collective memory that is not only a cultural heritage, but also the most advanced technology to face the climate challenges of tomorrow.

Rural landscapes as historical heritage

175 million hectares, nearly 40% of the European Union's territory: this is the extent of rural areas in the Old Continent. The agricultural, forestry, and pastoral sectors here have shaped the landscape more than any other activity:

Different in every place, agriculture has changed the ecological structure, the environment, culture, history, politics, and economy, and has, in turn, been influenced by them. Rural landscapes, products of the co-evolution of man and resources, reflect Europe's history very well; they constitute our collective heritage.

it is read in thebrochure IFLA (International Federation of Landscape Architects) Europe dedicated to agricultural landscapes, published in 2021.

European agro-cultural landscapes, in fact, have taken shape over the centuries, and continue to change under the influence of historical trends that closely link them to the evolution of human communities and ecosystems. According to European landscape architects, this connection represents a heritage of global importance which must be preserved, promoted, and allowed to evolve. Rural landscapes, in fact, are living systems imbued with a collective memory that is an essential resource for their resilience—that is, for their ability to absorb ecological and demographic changes.

FAO has already designated over 100 Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS), "living heritage systems inhabited by communities that maintain a complex relationship with their territory”. GIAHS are characterised by remarkable agrobiodiversity, traditional knowledge, invaluable cultures and sustainably managed landscapes by farmers, shepherds, fishermen, and communities to ensure their livelihoods and food security. The terraces and dry stone walls surrounding the cultivation of centuries-old olive trees in Italy, the Horta in Valencia, and the collective management of pastures in Barroso, Portugal, are emblematic examples of this heritage.

Modernity versus traditional management: the study in Spain

The approach identified by the United Nations and accepted by European landscape architects identifies rural landscapes as key actors for the climate mitigation: traditional agricultural practices, based on a deep knowledge of the territory, are also models of energy efficiency and water resource management; knowledge of the soil and the customary declinations of production activities are the basis of a sustainability capable of evolving together with the landscape, guaranteeing means of subsistence and well-being to community custodians of the territories.

Yet, European rural landscapes seem unable to absorb the pressures of a modernity that demands abandonment of the countryside, crop standardization, and an ever-increasing amount of natural resources to be allocated to "development." The impact of this rapid disintegration, so macroscopic that it is visible to the naked eye across the continent, is also supported by scientific evidence. A study published a few days ago in the journal landscape ecology analyzed the situation at Golden Pine, a Spanish municipality in the autonomous community of Castile and León which in 2020 had fewer than 200 inhabitants. The village, located on the canyon system of the Duero River, has historically been configured as a subsistence agro-forestry-pastoral settlement.

Like the rest of rural Spain, Pino del Oro also began to change dramatically with the depopulation started in the 1960s (and is still ongoing). As the study states:

Although some remaining residents continue to farm and raise livestock, their numbers are significantly smaller and the population is aging. With the abandonment of the landscape and the decline in population, there has also been a gradual loss of the wealth of knowledge and skills related to the sustainable use and management of the agro-silvo-pastoral landscape.

With what consequences?

The perception of the rural landscape: a question of identity

Today, the Douro Canyon region has been declared a natural park, and the entire Pino del Oro territory is part of the Meseta Iberica Biosphere Reserve. The area's unique natural beauty is well recognized, but this doesn't seem to be able to stop the erosion of a traditional culture that is being lost. agrarian reforms, monocultures and forest fires.

The research by Kyle P. Hearn and Nora Fagerholm allows us to look at the problem from an interesting perspective because it integrates historical data with future sustainability challenges, but above all because it takes into account the perceptual dimension of the landscape and its changes, giving voice to the people who have lived it and who live it every day.

Interviews with locals revealed four critical changes: the loss of wild species and the introduction of invasive species (also following the creation of the natural park in 2002); the abandonment of semi-natural vegetation, which today is growing uncontrollably; the historical role of grazing animals and their decline; the disappearance of crops and the fragmentation of agricultural land.

“In the past, there was very little firewood because it was used so often. Now there's more vegetation. Now there's a lot of unused land.”

says one interviewee. Depopulation (together with the arrival of butane stoves) has left behind shrubby vegetation and woods that are spreading over what remains of the lands once usedResult: in 2017, a large fire burned much of this new vegetation. The abandonment of traditional practices is not just about cultural impoverishment: the loss of ancient paths and pastures has made the territory much more vulnerable to firesThis is why future sustainability cannot ignore the protection of a historical heritage rooted in the land and the centuries.

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