Nature, Culture, and Conservation in the Anthropocene - Biodiversity Conservation and Environmental Change - page 140

Table 7.1 Examples of international initiatives that promote formal protection of cultural landscapes

Initiative Mechanism Aims

EU Landscape Convention
(ELC)

The first international
convention to focus specifically
on landscapes, with the aim
of providing the highest quality
landscapes for future
generations

Focused on the connections
between people and place, and
the idea of 'heritage everywhere,
the ELC applies to all landscapes,
towns and villages, open
countryside, the coast and inland
areas, as well as ordinary or
even degraded landscapes, and
those that are already afforded
protection.

IUCN Protected Areas
Designations

Categories IV, V, and VI
protected areas include
cultural aspects

Continued management is needed
to protect a particular habitat (IV),
maintain a cultural landscape of
significant aesthetic, biological
ecological value (V), or to provide
a sustainable supply of natural
resources (VI)

UNESCO Man and the
Biosphere Program

Biosphere Reserves include
provision for sustainable
natural resource use

Biosphere reserves provide
zones of strict protection, buffer
zones and sustainable use areas.
Biosphere reserves are sites
of integrated learning, where
environmental education, science,
and sustainable resource use
combine.

UNESCO World Heritage
Convention

Recognizes and protects
natural and cultural heritage
of 'outstanding universal
value'

Includes landscapes that are
designed and created intentionally
by humans (e.g. gardens and
parklands), 'organically evolved
landscapes, which result from
interactions between people and
their natural environment (they
may be 'relict' or 'continuing'),
and 'associative cultural
landscapes' that have powerful
associations between religion, art
or culture

disturbance is permitted. They may be relicts of past use, or still organically evolving in
response to ploughing, burning, grazing, forestry or other land use (IUCN 2006).
Cultural landscapes reflect the evolution of human society and settlement over time, under
the influence of the physical constraints and opportunities presented by their natural environ-