Lívia Madureira, Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD), Vila Real, Portugal
The challenge of managing productive landscape safeguarding its cultural character - The Alto Douro Vinhateiro World Heritage Portuguese landscape (assigned to theme
The Alto Douro Vinhateiro (ADV) is a region dominated by the vineyards and wine production. These activities shaped a unique landscape, at national and international level. It was included in the World Heritage list by UNESCO in 2001. This landscape is a remarkable construction made by generations of vinegrowers that reshaped steep and stony hills into vineyards, supported by schist walls and growing in anthrop-soils also made with local geological material, the schist. But, notwithstanding the vineyards dominance, ADV landscape’ encompasses a significant variety of cultures and natural and build elements. Vines come together with other Mediterranean cultures like the olive and almond yards, orange orchards, and in parallel with Mediterranean woods and bushes. Also remarkable are the old schist walls where natural vegetation replaced the vines killed by the phylloxera (a disease that affected vineyards in the nineteen century). Another characteristic feature of ADV landscape is its partition into parcels of different size, shape and soil occupation. This trait is underlined by the borders of olive trees surrounding the vineyards. Thus, this landscape is a diversified patchwork, with an important cultural dimension but also an important role in terms of nature and biodiversity conservation. In the last decades landscape architecture had experience relevant changes, which translate vinegrowers response to labour scarcity and availability of public funds to invest in the plantation of new vineyards or reconversion of the old ones. Mechanisation of cultivations, in a context of need to minimise costs, leads vinegrowers and landholders to adopt modern implementation systems, where vines are supported by land terraces or are planted up-rightly to the terrain. Public funds availability impelled the plantations of new vineyards, conquering terrains occupied by the Mediterranean woods and bushes. New plantations tend to correspond to larger plots with more regular shape and without the borders made by the olive trees. Therefore, diversity, partition and traditional features of landscape are become more diluted. And that defines the future trend in ADV landscape unless special measures were taken to assure preservation and management of its typical attributes, which are responsible by it inclusion in World Heritage list. This paper presents some results from a study focussed on the identification of economic instruments able to incentive vinegrowers and landholders to maintain landscape character with voluntary actions and strategies. The study was carried on two steps. First landscape demand was addressed through the survey of ADV visitors and tourists. Then a panel of agents from the supply side were confronted with public demand and with propositions of potential incentives to stimulate them to manage and to maintain landscape typical attributes. A survey was designed and implemented to gather visitors and tourists perceptions and preferences regarding the changes occurring in the landscape. This information was used to assist design of a Contingent Valuation survey intend to measure willingness to pay for conservation programmes enabling total or partial maintenance of typical features of ADV landscape. Two partial conservation programmes were valued, one for attributes linked to the cultural dimension of landscape: schist walls and borders made by olive yards; the second included only the more “nature-like” attributes like the Mediterranean woods and bushes and the natural vegetation growing on the abandoned old schist walls. Supply side agents included into the discussion panel were selected with the aid of local organisations to allow a small but representative sample from the vinegrowers group and other related agents. Tourist operators were also included. An approach focus group like (more likely with the Nominal Group Technique) was followed to present and discuss which could be a viable management strategy for typical attributes of landscape (wanted by the public) and which instruments would have supply side agent’s adherence. The study results demonstrate how a bottom-top well informed approach can be helpful to identify viable mechanisms to incentive farmers and landholders to provide non-productive landscape attributes. This is a recurrent challenge to the management of productive landscapes with high natural and/or cultural value, what underlines importance of research on finding innovative organisational and financing solutions to meet it.
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(copyright Gunther Maier) |