ABSTRACT
The Mediterranean mountains are a particularly stimulating field of study of the links between landscape and sustainable development. In fact, Mediterranean landscapes occupy a very specific place, both in people’s imagination and scientific debate. They represent a sort of archetype of humanised landscape, rooted in very old civilisations which were partly at the origin of domestication and the introduction of cultivated plants (Moriniaux, 2001). Their pictorial representation by Italian Renaissance painters is an element in this imagination, even if we should remember that the landscapes represented, such as the Tuscan or the Sienese School, were more often landscapes with hills rather than mountains (Luginbühl, 1992). In spite of this, this cultural history justifies the interest of our society in Mediterranean landscapes, which are currently threatened by new activities, urbanisation or forest regeneration linked to agro-pastoral decline (Curt and Terrasson, 1999; Lasanta et al., 2005; Mottet et al., 2006).
