AGER activity regards a way of reading the landscape in which the aesthetic-perceptual component is only one aspect of a more articulate vision: the one of the Biocultural Landscape (PBC). As a matter of fact a PBC results from the coexistence of both tangible and intangible elements , with characters of permanence, belonging to diverse subject areas. Among tangible elements, items not visible at the landscape scale, as usually considered, are also included.

 

PBC elements have a link with the space, the physical environment and are in some way related each other. Among "invisible" material elements we might have plant species, micro-ecosistems, etc.. while intangible items could be: climate components, cultural and folklore traditions, traditional agricultural knowledge, grazing, fishing practices, crafts and building techniques.

 

Areas of PBC deserve to be considered as living landscape and territorial invariants and should be seen as laboratories and sources of technological, rural, settlement new proposals, according to a non-anthropocentric vision of society.

 

AGER has developed an analytical methodology to identify and represent PBC, providing an approach based on the identification of causal networks and conditions of coexistence of different components, and subsequent data processing for the construction of bio-cultural landscape indicators.

 

The aspects considered in the PBC identification process are:

 

• Perceptual aspects related to the landscape’s shape and analysis of the landscape historical transformations.
• Demo-ethno-anthropological aspects relating to the territorial identity.
• Bioregional areas’flora, fauna, ecosystems and agro-environmental mosaics.
• Architectural aspects of the built landscape.
• GIS mapping data processing and database management.

The identification of PBCs is a basic survey in order to untertake subsequent actions and processes on the territory, for which AGER is able to provide support and advice:

 

• planning, land management and protection
  (eg the inclusion of PBC in planning and landscape protection tools);
• promotion of tourism/recreation resources
  (eg the creation of a pathways project or the organization of landscape tours);
• PBC operators and communities rewarding
  (eg the creation of a prize, publication in newspapers or other visibility operations for farmers);
• identification of funding sources
  (eg for the realization of "landscape projects");
• facilitation of regional networks
  

  (eg the promotion of short chains and marketing tools for traditional food products);

• training and awareness
  

  (eg organization of training courses on bio-cultural landscapes, production of PBC bibliografic educational and explanatory material, meetings and pubblic events partecipation );

• creation of cultural and economic connections between urban and rural lands
  (eg design of a network of ecotourism stakeholders).