<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><xml><records><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>17</ref-type><contributors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Linking research to practice: The landscape as the basis for integrating social and ecological perspectives of the rural</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Landscape and Urban Planning</style></secondary-title></titles><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">2013</style></year></dates><pages><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">--</style></pages><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">The rural spaces in Europe are undergoing complex processes of transition, at multiple scales, and rhythms. In order to grasp and understand the changes occurring, the need emerges for new, con- ceptual approaches that make it possible to combine the different factors that shape spaces. Recent, literature on the multifunctional character of rural spaces and their transition pathways shows the, need for spatially based approaches, where the natural characteristics of a landscape are combined, with the socio-economic and cultural drivers that affect its changes. Experience shows how practical, questions on the changes affecting the rural, addressed by society to the scientific community, are of a, new character and require novel research approaches. This paper argues that landscape based, approaches can be useful basis for the required conceptual innovation. The paper presents and, discusses a set of examples of prac- tice driven research developments, in contrasting regions of Europe. And it proposes a conceptual model which aims to contextualize empirical research driven by, problems set up in practice, and combining the ecological and structural dimensions with the socioeconomic, and cultural ones, all converging in the rural landscape, at multiple scales. The landscape, as, the spatial entity, in its material and immaterial dimensions, is presented in this paper as the most, comprehensive basis for the required step forward. This does not mean a disciplinary landscape, analysis revisited, but a new multi-scale and multi-domain place based approach, where the place is, the rural landscape</style></abstract></record><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>3</ref-type><contributors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">An interdisciplinary approach for integrating landscape management in the Common Agricultural Policy: Application to the municipality of Mertola, Southern Alentejo, Portugal</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">ROLE OF BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION IN THE TRANSITION TO RURAL SUSTAINABILITY</style></secondary-title></titles><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">2004</style></year></dates><publisher><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">I O S PRESS</style></publisher><pub-location><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">NIEUWE HEMWEG 6B, 1013 BG AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS</style></pub-location><volume><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">41</style></volume><pages><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">254-260</style></pages><isbn><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">1-58603-395-6</style></isbn><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">This paper seeks to present the methodological approach of a case-study&lt;br/&gt;at a local scale, in the south of Portugal, where the European Union&lt;br/&gt;Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has significant impacts in terms of&lt;br/&gt;environment, socioeconomic and landscape aspects.&lt;br/&gt;The municipality of Mertola is located in the south-eastern part of the&lt;br/&gt;Alentejo Region, in a marginal area in relation to socio-economic&lt;br/&gt;parameters and agricultural production. As in the region as a whole, the&lt;br/&gt;dominant land use system is the Montado in a diversified pattern, which&lt;br/&gt;has in the last decades been subject. to successive significant changes,&lt;br/&gt;raising questions as to future landscape quality, identity and the&lt;br/&gt;required management. As in other European rural areas, the&lt;br/&gt;transformations in agriculture and the productive function resulted in&lt;br/&gt;changes in the landscape, which have impacts also on other functions&lt;br/&gt;such as conservation, environment balance, recreation, life support and&lt;br/&gt;preservation of cultural identity. These other functions attract each&lt;br/&gt;day more attention as a possible set of alternatives uses in marginal&lt;br/&gt;areas of Europe, such as Mertola. This actual context requires thus a&lt;br/&gt;landscape management based on integrated policies for the rural world,&lt;br/&gt;following the new perspectives of the CAP but also based on a deep&lt;br/&gt;knowledge of local landscape dynamics and requirements for preservation&lt;br/&gt;of identity. This project intends to evaluate and understand:&lt;br/&gt;(a) the changes that have occurred in the municipality in the last&lt;br/&gt;decades; and&lt;br/&gt;(b) how they have affected landscape pattern and also people's&lt;br/&gt;perception and connections to this landscape identity.&lt;br/&gt;The intent is to build up proposals for a more integrated and locally&lt;br/&gt;adapted formulation of CAP objectives and instruments. This paper will&lt;br/&gt;present the changes in landscape pattern and character registered in the&lt;br/&gt;study area for the last decades, the interdisciplinary methodology&lt;br/&gt;adopted, as well as the results of the first phase of the project.</style></abstract></record><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>7</ref-type><contributors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Multifunctionality in Mediterranean landscapes–past and future</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">The New Dimensions of the European Landscapes</style></secondary-title></titles><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">2004</style></year></dates><publisher><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Springer</style></publisher><pub-location><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Dordrecht</style></pub-location><pages><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">135-164</style></pages><isbn><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">1-4020-2910-1</style></isbn><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">During past decades many of the traditional multifunctional Mediterranean landscapes with their typical complexes of agro-, silvo- and pastoral components changed thoroughly. Nowadays only few of them are still vital. Their complex farming systems secure at the same time a multitude of other functions than just agricultural production, such as support for recreation, amenity, cultural identity, preservation of natural resources and environmental quality. Some of these unique, old Mediterranean landscapes are discussed. They cover a broad range from near-tonature high mountain landscapes and terraced small-scale submediterranean polyculture landscapes to dry Mediterranean agro-silvo-pastoral landscapes. All these are changing, either spontaneously due to changing socio-economic and cultural conditions, or as a result of conscious policies, with the Common Agricultural Policy as a main driver. Even measures created to support specific traditional land uses and their landscapes are often not successful as they focus on only a part of the system. These policies and measures will not hold the valuable traditional systems from collapsing and subsequent vanishing. Some other policy instruments, such as those in forestry, are not meant to support them, but to transform them in favour of new monofunctionality. New strategies and instruments ought to deal with these multifunctional landscapes in a more integrated way, if some of them are to be maintained or transformed into others with similar qualities.</style></abstract></record><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>17</ref-type><contributors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Contribution to the extensification/intensification debate: new trends in the Portuguese montado</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Landscape and Urban Planning</style></secondary-title></titles><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">1999</style></year></dates><volume><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">46</style></volume><pages><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">125-131</style></pages><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">The montado is the agro-silvo pastoral system speci®c to the region of Alentejo, Southern Portugal, comprising an open formation of cork and holm oaks in varying densities, combined with a rotation of crops/fallow/pastures. Case studies in different areas of Alentejo, combining the land use and the farmers' decision making, have shown recent extensi®cation in different sub-types of montado. The agro-silvo pastoral system is in transition towards a silvo-pastoral or even purely forestry system. Cultivation is becoming less important in the system rotation, whereas livestock production is becoming more relevant and the ground cover is used only as pasture. The cork is still valuable and, in most cases, is the ®rst priority in the exploitation. New alternative uses are arising; they include hunting and rural tourism, both intended to support the preservation of the traditional landscapes. All these uses are supported directly or indirectly by the EU's CAP; for example, through agro-environmental measures. Although scrub patches are becoming larger, complete land abandonment is rare. These land use systems are based on a use that is even more extensive. Consequently the landscape is changing, but a new equilibrium, displaying new land cover mosaics, might be attained. Concomitantly, intensi®cation is occurring in certain areas. It causes degradation as a result of various management factors: (a) harvesting activity and deep ploughing in the areas where crops are cultivated, (b) too high stocking rates in relation to the carrying capacity of the system, impeding, for example, the natural regeneration of the tree cover; (c) introduction of heavy cattle breeds, which aggravates the problem of overstocking and results in direct damage to the soil structure and to the tree root system. The clearing of the shrub layer with heavy machinery affects the Quercus regeneration in both extensively and intensively managed patches, but no effective alternatives have yet been found. Today, the main landscape problem of the montado is not the abandonment of the system due to extensi®cation, but is rather: (1) whether the current extensi®cation is leading to a new equilibrium in an extensive silvo-pastoral or merely forestry system, and what type of landscape mosaic this change is creating; and (2) whether it is possible to avoid short-term intensi®cation and improve mechanisation to clear shrubs without degradation; (3) to what extent these changes depend on the CAP and how they will react to CAP changes in the future.</style></abstract></record></records></xml>