Cultural Severance and the Environment

A standpoint of many of the contributions is that it is important or even vital to understand the past, our history, if we are to address effectively future environmental challenges. Often, this is not the case, since the environment and nature, are treated as 'natural' rather than eco-cultural. Issues of common ownership and rights to natural resources present major challenges in the contemporary global world and the market forces of capital driven economics. Yet the long-term consequences, of the separation or severance of people from nature, are tangible and potentially disastrous at many levels. However, most contemporary actions towards conservation and sustainability fail to address this fundamental relationship between communities and local environments. This reflects perhaps, the ethos of Hardin's 1960s 'Tragedy of the commons' and from this perspective the chapters in this volume challenge such precepts and assumptions and through this, raise new and critical paradigms.

In recent years, researchers have turned their attention to issues of landscape change and the eco-cultural nature of the environment. Combined with the impacts and effects of cultural severance, the break between local people and their environmental resources, the cultural nature of landscape is now better understood. However, the implicit importance and significance for conservation of biodiversity, of heritage and consequently for activities such as tourism, are only just receiving wider recognition. The implications of widespread landscape abandonment, rural depopulation, urbanisation, and severance, are dramatic and sometimes stark, with wildfires raging, ecology often in free-fall, and local communities and their traditions displaced.

A first step with all these landscapes is to recognise both the important sites and the critical issues. Then, appropriate protection and conservation must be determined and applied. Finally, there is the potential todevelop new and extended commons as part of a landscape approach to future conservation. However, the cultural past, together now with issues of cultural severance, present enormous challenges for the integration of this knowledge into visions of future sustainable landscapes. Not least of these challenges is the loss of indigenous cultural and traditional knowledge, without which, much future conservation action is jeopardised. This book is intended to raise awareness, to stimulate further discuss, debate and research, and to then turn dialogue into action.

Résumé

This major book explores commons, lands and rights of usage in common, traditional and customary practices, and the cultural nature of 'landscapes'. Importantly, it addresses now critical matters of 'cultural severance' and largely unrecognized impacts on biodiversity and human societies, and implications for conservation, sustainability, and local economies. The book takes major case studies and perspectives from around the world, to address contemporary issues and challenges from historical and ecological perspectives. The book developed from major international conferences and collaborations over around fifteen years, culminating 'The End of Tradition?' in Sheffield, UK, 2010. The chapters are from individuals who are both academic researchers and practitioners. These ideas are now influencing bodies like the EU, UNESCO, and FAO, with recognition by major organisations and stakeholders, of the critical state of the environment consequent on cultural severance.

Contenu

Part 1: Setting the Scene on Cultural Severance and its Implications.- 1. Cultural Landscapes and Problems Associated with the Loss of Tradition and Custom: an introduction and overview.- 2. Cultural Severance and the End of Tradition.- 3. Globalism and the Enclosure of the Landscape Commons.- 4. A Natural Origin of the Commons: Interactions of People, Animals and Invisible Biodiversity.- Part 2: Case Studies of Cultural Landscapes from Around the World.- 5. Valorising the European rural landscape: the case of the Italian national register of historical rural landscapes.- 6. Severance of Traditional Grazing Landscape in the Himalayas: Commons and Ecosystems in Crisis?.- 7. Early Wood Commons and Beyond.- 8. What, How, and Why? Collecting Traditional Knowledge on Forest Uses in Switzerland.- 9. The History of Utilization and Management of Commons and Consequences of Current Social Change in the Alpine Region of Austria.- 10. Guided Pollards and the Basque Woodland during the Early Modern Ages.- 11. The Evolution of Forest Landscapes in Spain's Central Mountain Range: Different Forests for Different Traditional Uses.- 12. Of Commoners and Kings.- 13. The cultural landscape of royal hunting gardens from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century in Bialowieza Primeval Forest.- 14. The End of Common Uses and Traditional Management in a Central European Wood.- Part 3: The History and Use of Landscape Commons.- 15. 'A very fair field indeed...': an Archaeology of the Common Lands of English Towns.- 16. From Pasture Woodland, via Deer Park and Common, to Cultural Severance - a Case Study of the Commons of Ashampstead, Berkshire.- 17. Changing Cornish Commons.- 18. The Commons of the Ancient Parish of Sheffield.- 19. Traditional Uses, Destruction, Survival and Restoration of Common Land: a South Yorkshire Perspective.- 20. Abandoned Landscapes of Former German Settlement in the Czech Republic and in Slovenia.- 21. Land management and Biodiversity through Timein Upper Ribblesdale, North Yorkshire, UK: Understanding the Impact of Traditional Management.- 22. Policing the Commons in the Vale of York, c.1550 - c.1850.- 23. The Parliamentary Enclosure of Upland Commons in North-west England: Economic, Social and Cultural Impacts.- Part 4: Issues and Approaches for Future Commons & Cultural Landscapes.- 24. Biodiversity Conservation and the Traditional Management of Common Land: the Case of the New Forest.- 25. Looking Back to the Future: ancient, working pollards and Europe's silvo-pastoral systems.- 26. Promoting Stewardship of New Commons: Lessons from Wake Nature Partnership.- 27. End of Tradition, Reworking of Custom: Re-assembling Satoyama Woodlands on Tokyo's Urban Fringe.- 28. New Commons for Old: Inspiring New Cultural Traditions.- 29. Community Grassland Conservation on a Former Common in the Wye Valley, England.- 30. Upland Wood Pastures.- Part 5: Conclusions & Overview: the Implications of Severance for Future Landscapes.- 31. Concluding Thoughts on the Implications of Cultural Severance on Landscapes, Ecology and People.