ABSTRACT
Landscape and sustainability are concepts that many researchers have tried to study, often from landscape ecology, but without total success. Marc Antrop has said outright that ‘the concept of sustainable landscapes could be viewed as a utopian goal’ (Antrop 2006, 187), the reason being that the very idea of sustainability contradicts with the definition of landscapes, as the latter are in constant change and every new generation creates its own landscape. He suggests that the focus in sustainable landscapes should be on the preservation of what he calls ‘inherent’ landscape qualities and values: ‘[a] sustainable preservation of these qualities demands maintaining traditional practices and functions, and keeping the necessary knowledge to do so’ (Antrop 2006, 195). From an ecological perspective, Laura Musacchio (2009, 993) has proposed ‘six “E’s” of landscape sustainability – environment, economic, equity, aesthetics, experience, and ethics’ as a conceptual framework for translational landscape research and practice as a scientific basis for landscape sustainability. For her,
[a] sustainable landscape is not based on a deterministic state or condition that is frozen in geographic space and time, or something likely achieved by practicing a cook-book of practices. It represents a dynamic state of the system with multiple trajectories and outcomes and embodies multi-functionality, provides ecosystems services, and is resilient and adaptive.
(Musacchio 2009, 1007)