Restoration of Multifunctional Cultural Landscapes: Merging Tradition and Innovation for a Sustainable Future

723 Pages·2022·34.723 MB·English

by  Stefan Zerbe

Landscape Series
Stefan Zerbe
Restoration
of Multifunctional
Cultural
Landscapes
Merging Tradition and Innovation for a
Sustainable Future
Landscape Series
Volume 30
Series Editors
Christine Fürst, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale),
Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany
Cristian Echeverria, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile
Henry N. N. Bulley, BMCC, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA
Editorial Board Members
Buyanbaatar Avirmed, School of Agroecology, Mongolian University
of Life Sciences, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Yazidhi Bamutaze, Dept of Geo Geo-Info & Climatic Sci, Makerere University,
Kampala, Uganda
Bolormaa Batsuuri, National University of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Mahamadou Belem, Nazi Boni University, Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso
Emiru Birhane, Dept. Land Resources Management, Mekelle University,
London, UK
Danilo Boscolo, FFCLRP, Departamento de Biologia, Universidade de Sao Paolo,
Ribeirao Preto, São Paulo, Brazil
Jiquan Chen, Center for Global Change & Earth Observa,
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
Nicola Clerici, Department of Biology, Universidad del Rosario,
Bogota, Colombia
Marc Deconchat, National Research Institute for Agriculture, Castanet, France
Andrés Etter, Fac. de Estudios Ambientales y Rurales,
Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá DC, Colombia
Pawan K. Joshi, School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi, India
Alexander Khoroshev, Dept. Physical Geography & Landscape Sc.,
Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
Felix Kienast, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape
Research WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
Ramesh Krishnamurthy, Department Landscape Level Planning,
Wildlife Institute of India, Chandrabani, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India
Quang Bao Le, International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas,
Cairo, Egypt
Yu-Pin Lin, Dept of Bioenvi Systems Engineering, National Taiwan University,
Taipei, Taiwan
Benjamin Kofi Nyarko, Dept of Geography & Regional Planning,
University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana
Henrique Pereira, German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv),
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Leipzig, Sachsen, Germany
Alexander Prishchepov, Dept of Geosci & Natural Resource Mgmt,
University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Robert M. Scheller, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
Kalev Sepp, Inst. Agricultural & Environ. Sciences, Estonian University
of Life Sciences, Tartu, Estonia
Anton Shkaruba, Inst. of Agricultural & Environ Sciences,
Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tartu, Estonia
Janet Silbernagel Balster, Silvernail Studio for Geodesign, LLC,
Black Earth, WI, USA
Ileana Stupariu, Dept. Regional Geography and Environment,
University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania
Raymond Tutu, College of Humanities, Delaware State University,
DOVER, DE, USA
Teiji Watanabe, Fac of Environmental Earth Sci, A-301, Hokkaido University,
Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan
Wei-Ning Xiang, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA
Qing Zhao, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Shenyang, China
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Stefan Zerbe
Restoration of
Multifunctional Cultural
Landscapes
Merging Tradition and Innovation
for a Sustainable Future
Stefan Zerbe
Faculty of Science and Technology
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
BOLZANO, Italy
ISSN 1572-7742 ISSN 1875-1210 (electronic)
Landscape Series
ISBN 978-3-030-95571-7 ISBN 978-3-030-95572-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95572-4
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Preface
More than half a century ago, Rachel Carson (Silent Spring, 1962) stated that “the
more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe
about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction” (April 1952). The same feel-
ing, I had on my numerous travels through the world, often related to international
ecological research projects. I passed through impressive landscapes which reflected
centuries or even millennia of human impact, thus shaping the natural towards a
cultural environment. My travel routes led me from the oases of the Uighur people
in NW China, along the river floodplains and lifelines in continental-arid Central
Asia, across the manifold ancient and traditional cultural landscapes all over Europe,
the North African semi-arid and arid landscapes with their nomadic societies, and
further south to tropical West Africa. I explored the terraced landscapes in the high
Andes of South America and the ancient Mayan cities and cultivation systems in
Central America, just to mention a selection (Fig. 1).
Experiencing breathtaking landscapes, often a combination of natural features
and a long-lasting land use mainly comprising agriculture, forestry, fishery, and
small settlements embedded in the landscape, motivated me to raise my voice for
the preservation, sustainable management, and restoration of traditional and multi-
functional cultural landscapes. These ancient and traditional cultural landscapes
have to be considered as our heritage. They might also provide an alternative option
to the unsustainable, natural resource depleting, and unhealthy industrial agrobusi-
ness which is one of the main causes of our global environmental problems such as
biodiversity loss, climate change, eutrophication, soil salinization, water depletion
and contamination, desertification, and erosion. Additionally, further urbanization
towards megacities over-crowded with millions of urban dwellers does not seem a
sustainable solution for a balanced land use and future land development on
our planet.
By reading a book which focuses on traditional cultural landscapes and their
preservation and restoration, one might assume that this is a plea for a return to his-
tory. However, this definitely is not what this book intends. For sure, some nostalgia
might be a driver to preserve the past. This might also be stimulated by old land-
scape paintings, e.g., from C.D. Friedrich (1774–1840) who fixed traditional
xi
xii Preface
Fig. 1 Countries throughout the world, visited by the author from the 1980s to 2021, where he
could study traditional cultural landscapes. Europe: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein,
Poland, Czech Republic, Belgium, Luxemburg, The Netherlands, Italy, San Marino, Spain (and
Canary Islands), Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal, Greece, Serbia, Croatia, Albania, Hungary, Turkey,
France, England, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland; Asia: Russian Federation, China (with
Hong Kong), Thailand, Laos, South Korea, Japan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Israel;
Africa: Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Liberia; Latin
America: Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama Peru, Argentina (with Patagonia); North America:
United States of America, and Canada
cultural landscapes of Germany in the first half of the nineteenth century on his
canvasses, like so many other landscape painters did during the past centuries, later
followed by landscape photographers. Keywords and key concepts such as cultural
heritage, cultural identity, or sense of place connect us to history. As it will be shown
in this book, “traditional” must not be taken as a synonym for, on the one hand,
“old-fashioned” and “outdated” and, on the other hand, as “sustainable” and “well
adapted to the natural environment.” There are numerous examples throughout the
world where traditional land use, practiced for many decades or centuries, has led to
land degradation, e.g., deforestation, over-grazing, nutrient depletion of the soil,
soil erosion, and over-utilization of water resources. However, it will be filtered out
how traditional land use with its landscape patterns and processes as well as local
and indigenous knowledge can serve for the implementation of strong sustainabil-
ity, particularly with the restoration of diverse ecosystems, land-use systems, and
whole cultural landscapes (Fig. 2). Up-to-date knowledge and technological as well
as socio-economic innovation might support this with the overall aim of (re-)devel-
oping multifunctional and thus sustainable and resilient landscapes.
As stated by Bloemers et al. (2010, p.1), “the major grand challenges facing our
society are embedded in landscape: climate change, energy needs, health and safety,