Biocultural Diversity for Sustainable Ecological, Cultural and Sacred Landscapes: The Biocultural Landscape Approach - Landscape Ecology for Sustainable Environment and Culture - page 60

Fig. 4.6 The ESLAND Project on European island landscape and cultural heritage, with its
partnership
organisations, for a total partnership of 33 organisations in 24 countries (Fig. 4.6 ).
The core group specifically considers the history of European island landscapes
fundamental not only for the understanding of present day landscape features, but
also for preserving their heritage and for conveying traditional practices to modern
developers. It has moreover recognised that landscape character assessment of
European islands should include both natural and cultural aspects in order to
contribute to heritage knowledge, as indicated above.
Cultural heritage and identity are indeed precious values that need to be pre-
served. They are unique to each place and in islands they embed a strong character.
The ESLAND Research accordingly promotes an interdisciplinary approach to
identify the key island landscape values in order to raise awareness about Euro-
pean cultural heritage and identity, and to support more interaction between local
communities—the stewards of their landscapes. It also seeks to produce innovative
scenarios for planning European island landscapes, visualising their future
developments and utilising a participatory approach to preserve, as well as to
develop, these landscapes with a more culturally-oriented perspective.
Such a perspective has been clearly underlined by Naveh ( 2011 , 6), who has left
us with a call: 'we have to realize that we are dealing not only with a need for a
sustainable environment, but with a sustainable world of our Total Human