A műemlékek sokszínűsége (A 28. Egri Nyári Egyetem előadásai 1998 Eger, 1998)

Előadások / Presentations - SZILASSY Zoltán: Cultural landscapes: a borderline discipline betwen monument protection and nature protection

Landscapes are classified as either natural or cultural. Relatively small but very precious areas in Europe still carry natural or semi-natural ecosystems. In spite of that, practically no place may be considered entirely natural in the sense that it has been affected by no human activity, and there are also very few places without human presence. Even Nordic Sub-alpine birch forests or the Russian taiga and tundra, often qualified as intact, show signs of human intervention. Other areas including wastelands and Mediterranean bushes replace former forests and have not just been affected by human activity but are the outcome of several centuries of human land use. The term cultural landscape refers to that distinguishing relationship between man and nature and embraces mainly rural landscapes, While they dominate over landscapes preserving their natural flora, cultural landscapes play a significant role in Europe's natural environment. It seems, therefore, that the category of cultural landscapes is the one that European landscapes fit the best. PROBLEMS IN DEFINITION, DIFFERENT APPROACHES Research on the theme of cultural landscapes has a relatively short history. It has never been a welldefined, exact discipline. An obstacle in the way of developing coherent research lines and identifying the problems was that geographers and cultural historians, who most naturally considered the discipline as primarily theirs, have shown an ever changing focus of interest within the realm of „landscapes". Our knowledge about cultural landscapes and their evolution in space and time is, therefore, unbalanced and very eclectic. There is a' lot of confusion concerning definition and nomenclature, too. It is unclear what the specialists mean by historic, national heritage, natural, archaic, traditional or ethnographic landscapes: each scholar has their own approach. Having said this, it is a general conviction that the field of cultural landscapes deserves to be studied in a much more comprehensive, integrated, and co-ordinated approach than so far. A main problem is that this field is a no man's land really. It requires multidisciplinary interpretation, and therefore the integrated approach of landscape ecology seems the most appropriate among the methods applicable. The priorities and methodology of this discipline at this stage mainly come from the natural sciences, and the also decisive social and economic dimensions are not yet systematically integrated into research. This is why the discipline of landscape ecology may fail to understand the problems of those landscapes in the shaping of which cultural or socio-economic factors have played a major part, and that would be a significant shortcoming. Also, there are a good many crucial terms in ecology that are still to be clarified, such as balance, climax etc. Natural scientists and sociologists will absolutely have to talk to each other in order to interpret and solve the basic problems associated with our environment. Given our varied and rich landscape concepts, the history of cultural landscapes could be a proper common starting point for studying the process of the interaction of man and nature and its effects on the landscape in the past. Close co-operation between human and natural sciences and a concept that spans over long periods are needed to perceive the true complexity of the development of cultural landscapes, the ..fluidity" of the relations between cultural and natural aspects, in the good sense of the word, and to be able to understand the exact historical and ecological components of today's cultural landscapes, as well as their interaction. Knowledge of the past is not only important to understand the present, but also to anticipate the consequences of the current trends and to identify the criteria of efficient landscape management in an evolution-based approach. Another sign of the growing international significance of, and international concern about, cultural landscapes was the adoption by UNESCO in 1992, along with natural and cultural assets, of cultural landscapes