ABSTRACT
The UNESCO World Heritage site of Wachau serves as a case to illustrate the role of co-management for the cultural sustainability of landscapes. Landscape governance shared by civil society, market and authorities is expected to contribute to more sustainable landscapes. On the one hand, our case study confirms that active citizenship actually drives landscape sustainability. On the other hand, new co-management platforms, after a phase of professionalization and institutionalization started mirroring old power concentrations and privileged access to resources, legitimacy and status. Pluralistic perspectives and even tensions can be fruitful for landscape sustainability, but are hardly able to change detrimental ‘old’ power constellations.
