World Heritage Cultural Landscapes: sustainable land use and biodiversity conservation
© Yu Guangming / HAGCH
Evening Bell ringing at Nanping Hill, one of the ten poetically named scenic places of West Lake (West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou), China
In 1992 the World Heritage convention became the first international legal instrument to recognize and protect cultural landscapes.
There exist a great variety of landscapes that are representative of the different regions of the world. Combined works of nature and humankind, they express a long and intimate relationship between peoples and their natural environment and can teach us how this relationship shapes culture and identity, and enriches cultural and biological diversity.
Protection of Natural landscapes can contribute to modern techniques of sustainable land use in maintaining or enhancing natural values in the landscape, the protection of traditional cultural landscapes is therefore helpful in maintaining biological diversity.
