The deterioration of the terraced rice paddies of the Philippines, included in the List of World Heritage in Danger, is only an example among many all over the world of the effects of these processes.

The crisis of traditional production systems brought about by the globalization of economic exchanges is certainly not the only threat to landscape conservation, but it is certainly the one producing the most dramatic and irreversible effects. As the Catalogue clearly shows, landscape is a very vulnerable heritage, exposed to threats arising from international economic and social processes that have witnessed a sharp acceleration over the last decades. Besides, from the point of view of UNESCO, it stands as an example, even outside of Italy, of a methodology that many states could adopt to improve their knowledge of the nature of their landscape and the issues affecting it, as well as their landscape conservation and management systems. The National Catalogue initiative is of great importance for our understanding of the Italian landscape and its conservation. Its physical morphology, geographical position and rich history have favored the rise, within a relatively small territory, of a remarkable variety of cultural landscapes of extraordinary beauty, with few parallels elsewhere. In this context, Italy has a very special and privileged role.

They are a testimony to the importance of landscape for the cultural identities of peoples. Today, there are 66 cultural landscapes in the World Heritage List, located in regions and cultures all over the world. This category was used by many states in different continents to identify and designate for protection areas of special beauty and great cultural and spiritual value. It was introduced in the system of the World Heritage Convention of 1992 under the qualification of “cultural landscape”. Landscape, intended as an expression of the complex interaction between society and nature and the stratification of the processes that accompanied productive transformations in the course of time, is one of the most important categories in the World Heritage List. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (Foreword by the Director of UNESCO WHC ISSN 2211-9019 ISSN 2211-9027 (electronic) ISBN 978-9-2 ISBN 978-9-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-9-9 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2012954545 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Thorbjørn JaglandĮditor Mauro Agnoletti DEISTAF, University of Florence Firenze Italy Patronages: - UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE CENTRE - Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage - Under the auspices of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Mr. Italian Historical Rural Landscapes Cultural Values for the Environment and Rural Development

This research intends to support these efforts. The CBD-UNESCO program on biocultural diversity, the FAO Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems and several projects of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, as well as European rural policies acknowledge the importance of cultural values associated to landscape. The results show that is not only the economic face of globalization that is negatively affecting the landscape, but also inappropriate environmental policies. This research work presents more than a hundred case studies where the historical relationships between man and nature have generated, not deterioration, but cultural, environmental, social and economic values. But the current economic, social and environmental problems of the Earth probably call for examples of a positive integration between human society and nature. Sustainable development and rural policies have pursued strategies where farming has been often regarded as a factor deteriorating the ecosystem.

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