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2019’s International Day for Monuments and Sites, aka World Heritage Day is April 18. This year’s global celebration hosted by ICOMOS spotlights the relevance of rural landscapes, the challenges that encompass their conservation, the benefits that these efforts provide, and how rural landscapes are intrinsically related with sustainable development.
Hashtags: #worldheritageday, #IDMS2019, #RuralLandscapes
Key Links
ICOMOS
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Rural Landscapes
ICOMOS-IFLA Principles concerning rural landscapes as heritage (PDF)
@ICOMOS
Questions
- How do we listen and amplify messages from rural communities?
- What are rural landscapes?
- How do we foster communication regarding the relevance of rural landscapes to world heritage?
- What are the this year’s publications, resources, and events focusing on world heritage?
Background
In the ICOMOS “Principles concerning rural landscapes as heritage”,adopted by the ICOMOS General Assembly in 2017, rural landscapes are defined as “terrestrial and aquatic areas co-produced by human-nature interaction used for the production of food and other renewable natural resources, via agriculture, animal husbandry and pastoralism, fishing and aquaculture, forestry, wild food gathering, hunting, and extraction of other resources, such as salt. Rural landscapes are multifunctional resources. At the same time, all rural areas have cultural meanings attributed to them by people and communities: all rural areas are landscapes.”
Rural landscapes encompass an increasing accumulation of tangible and intangible heritage which is in constant adaptation to environmental, cultural, social, political and economic conditions. They are the most common type of continuing cultural landscape. For centuries, even for millennia, rural landscapes have maintained a balance between human activity and their environment. A myriad of everyday actions have in some cases resulted in moderate evolution, and in other cases in dramatic transformations due to changes in production methods, technological advances or economic and political changes.The resulting heritage features evidence from different periods, constituting a rich and complex ensemble of tangible, intangible and living heritage, in which change, transformation and evolution remain ongoing, and continue as long as the rural landscape is alive.
The role of communities in the conservation of rural landscapes
Whilst the urban population rate is growing and has reached a global figure of 54.82% in 2017, the population of rural areas also continues to grow, despite its decline in terms of percentage share. This has a twofold effect in rural areas and,while some areas are being abandoned, others are suffering from human pressure. Furthermore, we cannot ignore the ecological footprint that urban areas have on rural zones, and the changes in the rural landscapes that this footprint induces, as well as the consequences for both the environment and communities. Some of the main features that define rural landscapes are its fragility and use. While any changes in the conditions that sustain the living and evolving landscape might involve a dramatic transformation, or even a complete abandon or loss of a landscape, it is the conservation of its use which enables its tangible and intangible heritage to survive.
Rural landscapes may well be the principal domain in conservation practice in which communities and participation are the most relevant. The conservation of rural landscapes puts an emphasis on the relation between heritage and society, and on the obvious and direct benefits that heritage conservation has not only on the communities that have created, modified and actually bear those rural landscapes, but also on the society whose ecological footprint these landscapes sustain–that is to say the benefits for all of us.
Embedded Tweets
On #18April the staff of the #BoboliGardens will offer guided tours of ancient orchards and vineyards to celebrate the International Day for Monuments and Sites focused on #RuralLandscapes and promoted by @ICOMOS.
Information and booking on https://t.co/5GIpaZXMGD#IcomosIDMS2019 pic.twitter.com/doIutm1y5V— Gallerie Uffizi (@UffiziGalleries) April 17, 2019
Planeta.com