Landscape and cultural sustainability

Introduction

Sustainability of landscapes and landscape development has been a subject of research ever since the concept of sustainable development was introduced in the report from the Brundtland Commission that was published in October 1987 (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987). The terms ‘landscape’ and ‘sustainability’ do not fit in one sentence very comfortably, as both of these concepts are vague and fluid in time and space. This also applies to ‘culture’, as this adds to the complexity for understanding the cultural sustainability of landscapes, which is topic of this special issue of Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography.

Sustainability and landscapes

Just over ten years ago, Antrop (2006) called the idea of sustainable landscape a utopian goal, because landscapes change over time and each generation of humans creates its own landscapes, and therefore the definitions of landscape and sustainability are contradictory. In Antrop’s understanding, sustainability can be achieved in two ways, namely through conservation of certain landscape types or values, and as management, both of which are presented in this special issue.

For sustainable landscapes, one should focus on maintaining values, practices and functions, and the knowledge needed for these. Antrop (2005, 195) states:

Considering preservation of inherited natural and cultural values ‘as long as possible’ demands a different strategy than sustaining landscape qualities for continuing economic benefits. Based upon the paradigm that only functional structures in the landscape will persist, sustaining heritage values is often linked to enhancing economic benefit, which might lead, in cases of over-use, to a deterioration of these initial qualities. Sustainable urbanized landscapes imply completely different aspects than sustainable rural ones.

Thus, sustainable landscapes are possible but they entail a conflict of how to achieve that aim.

Sustainability of landscapes or sustainable landscapes have often been viewed through a ‘pillar approach’, whereby various aspects or dimensions of sustainability – ecological, social and economic – have been considered (Wu & Hobbs 2002; Antrop 2006; Musacchio 2009; Palang et al. 2011a; Brandt et al. 2012; Soini & Birkeland 2014). Much of this landscape research has concerned ecological sustainability, such as landscape diversity and landscape dynamics. The social dimension of sustainability usually refers to the acceptance of the landscape changes in a specific context, particularly touristic areas or other areas where the landscape is rapidly changing. By contrast, the economic dimension of sustainability is often linked to ecological or social dimensions, as landscape change is often the result of increases in economic efficiency (e.g. in agriculture) or the value of land affecting human well-being and social acceptance of the change (Soini & Birkeland 2014). Initially, not much attention was paid to cultural sustainability that could form the fourth pillar (Hawkes 2001) or be the foundation of and for sustainability (Auclair & Fairclough 2015; Soini & Dessein 2016). Whereas ecological, social and economic dimensions of sustainability usually treat landscape mainly as a physical entity, as an area or object of design, the cultural dimension adds a layer, that addresses the intangible aspects of landscape such as landscape as a memory or representation (Keisteri 1990).

There have been attempts to establish a framework for looking at the above-mentioned dimensions altogether in a more holistic ways (Stephenson 2008). Wu & Hobbs (2002) emphasize that any definition of sustainable landscape must be more than the sum of its parts and should address how scale relates to time and space. In this respect, sustainability science has introduced some means to go beyond the dimensions and exploring landscape in a holistic manner as a dynamic system. For example, Musacchio (2009, 1007) has argued:

a sustainable landscape is not based on a deterministic state or condition that is frozen in geographic space and time, or something likely achieved by practicing a cookbook of practices. It represents a dynamic state of the system with multiple trajectories and outcomes and embodies multi-functionality, provides ecosystems services, and is resilient and adaptive.

The key tools for such a place-based and problem-driven approach are to be found in interdisplinarity and transdisciplinarity.

Culture in sustainable landscapes

How can we understand culture in sustainable landscapes? Although cultural sustainability has been mentioned in the research literature and policy for decades, few approaches to it have been more conceptual until recently (Soini & Birkeland 2014). Soini & Birkeland (2014) conducted research that investigated the scientific discourse on ‘cultural sustainability’ and found seven storylines: heritage, vitality, economic viability, diversity, locality, eco-cultural resilience, and eco-cultural civilization, many of which have been chosen as starting points or overarching metaphors for the following articles in this special issue. Perspectives on the cultural sustainability of landscapes can be developed in light of all of these storylines, as they are also emphasized in the European Landscape Convention (ELC), which, in the year 2000, was opened for signature by the member states (Council of Europe 2017), and in the Faro Convention (Council of Europe 2005).

Heritage is an important part of the group identity and collective identity that are deeply associated with landscape, which is viewed as a vital source of inspiration and well-being for all. Landscapes can serve as an economic asset, for example in tourism, and for the economic viability of communities in general. Landscape diversity can refer to important values for planning and policymaking or to various and sometimes conflicting perceptions of landscape. As a locality, landscape has a sense of place and is part of place-making practices. Eco-cultural resilience in a landscape may refer to culture as an essential part of the cultural resilience of that landscape. Finally, in the context of landscape, eco-cultural civilization refers to viewing the landscape from an ecological perspective (Soini & Birkeland 2014).

The seven storylines are partly overlapping and interconnecting, but they still reflect different material and immaterial facets of landscapes from cultural point of view (Keisteri 1990). However, the issue of how culture influences sustainability is still an underexplored theme, despite widespread and increasing recognition that the cultural patterns associated with everyday living contribute to unsustainable patterns of resource use, production and consumption. Such cultural barriers to change are common, subtle and powerful. Culture may also be seen as a resource, embedded in the manifold complexities of livelihood practices and ways of living in this world, and in planning and policies as well as in new ways of doing research (Soini & Birkeland 2014; Dessein et al. 2015). Understanding how culture can act as a resource to promote sustainability, rather than as a barrier, is the key to the development of cultural sustainability. In this regard, the role of culture as a means to give meaning and value to tangible, intangible and even invisible landscape becomes crucial. Lowenthal (1985) has called landscapes a recorder, and Cosgrove (1998) has called them a storage and medium of national identity. In simple terms, we value landscapes in different ways; we usually value them holistically, immediately integrating what we perceive with what we know and remember, and we mix all this with our cultural context. Some landscapes act as landmarks, and landscapes contribute to national identities and at the same time they are shaped by political realities.

In the Nordic tradition, landscape is seen as an interface of culture and nature (Palang & Fry 2003; Jones & Olwig 2008), with culture deeply embedded in the term landscape. Landscape reflects the way humans have cared for, built in and exploited the surroundings. In this way, culture represents both problem and possibility, form and process, and concerns values and practices whereby a landscape may continue to exist or change. We suggest that more nuanced analysis of cultural sustainability of landscapes is needed. How can culture as an explicit aspect of sustainability contribute to landscape research and planning, or vice versa?

Cultural sustainability in the landscapes – the articles in this special issue

There are many ways to achieve cultural sustainability, as suggested by the contributions in this special issue. The key question seems to be what to do with the past, and whether to forget, destroy, or absorb it into the new emerging landscape systems (Viik et al. 2015). The first article in this special issue, by Bender & Haller (2017), links culture to practices that shape landscapes. The authors understand culture as ‘the way of thinking, the ideas, experiences, values, and norms (mental dimension), which influence the practices and organizations of a certain population group (behavioural dimension), and that thereby shape the cultural landscape (material dimension)’ (Bender & Haller 2017, 132). They argue that culture clearly affects the relationships between socio-demographic, economic, and ecological sustainability, and may be regarded as a steering component that results in different structures on the northern and southern sides of the Alps. Bender & Haller show that these regionally diverse historical development systems, which are primarily conditioned by cultural practices, are still powerful today and affect spatial disparities in agriculture and tourism. Bender & Haller conclude that the same cultural precondition shapes population mobility and therefore threatens regional sustainability.

The second article, by Hammer et al. (2017), assesses the role of cultural aspects in regional and local integrated planning purposes by coupling the concept of cultural sustainability with cultural ecosystem services. An increasing trend in the Stockholm metropolitan area, but also elsewhere, is horse keeping. On the one hand, ‘horsiculture’ landscapes somewhat resemble traditional dairy landscapes. The practice is important for maintaining the open rural landscape, and for the financial possibilities of diversifying and maintaining traditional food-producing agriculture. However, as a recreational enterprise, horse keeping focuses primarily on cultural ecosystem services. Urban dwellers who own horses may not know anything about practical agriculture, yet are more connected to their stable than other occasional city recreationists. Regional and local planning processes have to tackle the issues of accessibility, bridleway connectivity, and lack of pastures and paddocks, and deal with overgrown open agricultural land where there is a scarcity of horses, which would keep it open. In this multiplicity of opinions, Hammer et al. (2017, 156) conclude:

The development towards a horse-keeping dominated landscape has shifted the focus from provisioning services towards recreational ecosystem services that risk degrading other categories of services. Differences in views on what the cultural rural landscape entails in practice can also cause conflicts.

However, the links with the past landscape are still found in this horse-keeping dominated landscape.

While the first two articles concerns how the past has influenced present-day planning, and how in path-dependent way the past could incorporate and adapt to new developments, the remaining two articles deal with gaps or lost links to past and ignorance. The third article, by Sooväli-Sepping (2017), presents a mnemohistoric viewpoint on how commemoration of the past brings together war heritage and cultural sustainability to create identity. The author argues that the forgotten landscape heritage may be a way to find common values in a multi-ethnic society. One of the questions concerning sustainability, apart from creating the links with the past, is what is forgotten and why. The answer, as Sooväli-Sepping suggests, may be ‘to promote cultural sustainability from the perspective of ethnic cohesion in heritage construction as a way of celebrating universal values of humanism’ (Sooväli-Sepping 2017, 166).

The fourth article, by Pavlis & Terkenli (2017, 168), ‘highlights the factor of tentativeness in the applicability of the cultural sustainability concept to landscape values in the case of Greece’. Their results point at differences between urban and rural participants regarding their socio-demographic background feeding into their perceptions, emotions, experiences, behaviours, practices, and attitudes towards their landscapes. This mindset can influence the future for 1500 years, as explicated by Bender and Haller (2017). The two conclusions drawn by Pavlis & Terkenli are extremely important. First, many participants’ perception of the landscape was narrow and their relation to landscape was deficient and problematic. Second, landscape education plays a significant role in developing one’s relation with landscape. Therefore, Pavlis & Terkenli (2017, 185) conclude:

if cultural sustainability is viewed as a fallback to ways of the past, regarding thinking, feeling and acting with regard to the landscape, as would be exemplified here by perceptions, mentalities, attitudes, and values of our rural sample, then obviously such sustainability would not be desirable in light of more recent and contemporary inroads into landscape conceptualization and stewardship (i.e. the ELC).

If the level of ‘consciousness’ of landscape is low in local societies, cultural sustainability is irrelevant and perhaps we should be thinking of ‘saving the landscape from the locals’. This opens up a debate on the usefulness of the concept of cultural sustainability proposed by Pavlis & Terkenli. The significance and relevance of the concept of cultural sustainability seems to depend on whether we adopt the institutional or utilitarian conceptualization of human-landscape relationship.

Concluding discussion and remarks

The question remains: What to do with the past in the future? Antrop (2005, 21) has suggested that ‘the processes and management in past traditional landscapes and the manifold relations people have towards the perceivable environment and the symbolic meaning it generates, offer valuable knowledge for more sustainable planning and management for future landscapes’. Another suggestion is that landscape biographies, path dependency theory, and cultural semiotics may be useful tools in landscape research (Palang et al. 2011b). The latter points to Lotman’s (2009) work, which explains the need to create links with the past through explosive times: if the link can be created, the past landscape becomes part of the present one, but if the link is lost we will regard the past as someone else's past.

In a summary of a COST Action 1007 ‘Investigating Cultural Sustainability’, Dessein et al. (2015) have outlined multiple ways in which how culture supports, connects and creates sustainability. Auclair & Fairclough (2015, 7) ask for culture to be at the heart of sustainability because it is the fundamental element of sustainable policies. Viik et al. (2015) have suggested that a culture can be called sustainable when it is capable of absorbing elements of other cultures.

The authors of the articles in this special issue argue that the concept of ‘cultural sustainability of landscapes’ provides a framework for research that concerns the cultural aspects of sustainable landscapes and links them more closely to the current political debate on sustainability and sustainability transformations. Whatever role culture takes in sustainable landscape development with respect to the seven storylines mentioned, or whether culture is considered as ‘a pillar’ or foundation for sustainability, it certainly makes sense to talk about cultural aspects in the context of sustainable landscapes as distinct from the social aspects. The difficulty of integrating culture into other dimensions of sustainability lays in the methodological separability. This is revealed also in ecosystem services research, in which the study of cultural ecosystem services calls for approaches that differ from approaches to other of services and the full integration of cultural values faces challenges (see Daniel 2012; Garcia Rodrigues et al. 2017 for further discussions). In this regard, transdisciplinarity provides a crucial means to cross various boundaries between disciplines, and between sectors and organizations, but also between past and future, and local and global, which is often treated in research and planning as opposites. The co-design of research and planning processes and co-creation of knowledge with those who are involved in landscape development provide a means ‘to mobilize social and cultural resources associated with a re-animation of place’ (Birkeland 2008, 283). There are already a number of good practices that, through social learning, pave ways for a new research and planning culture.

ORCID

Hannes Palang http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1981-2071