According to the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention of UNESCO, cultural landscapes are cultural properties and represent the “combined works of nature and of man”.
They are illustrative of the evolution of human society and settlement over time, under the influence of the physical constraints and/or opportunities presented by their natural environment and of successive social, economic and cultural forces, both external and internal. Landscapes are complex systems where cultural relations are developed in an ecological context; like this the cultural landscapes, result of the joined action of human and nature, are a key element of the world cultural heritage, in which it is recognized the mutual and reciprocal influence of nature and culture. Cultural landscapes reflects techniques of sustainable usage of land, as well as a spiritual relation with nature. The existence of traditional ways of usage of land sustains also the biological diversity.
Cultural landscapes represents tangible and intangible values of different people that took advantage wisely from the r nature esources, in which they based their believes, knowledge, habits, practices and uses. The Mediterranean landscape has suffer an intense human intervention that has transformed it in occasions in a paradigm and iconic representation of the different cultures. One of them, the Islamic culture has generated a wealthy variety of land uses and multiple different intangible values associated to them.
Some background to Cultural landscapes
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