PAN European thematic network on Cultural Landscapes and their Ecosystems

Most European ecosystems are systems functioning under anthropogenic influence and Europe is composed of a plurality of such ecosystems composing Cultural Landscapes. The Cultural Landscapes with their Ecosystems are main contributors to the European biodiversity and they are a significant part of European heritage and a witness of the past and present relationship between man and his natural and built environments. They highly contribute to European quality of life, being basic for European identity. Europe's landscapes are diverse and rich in natural and cultural dimensions, and their ecosystems comprise a large diversity of habitats and a rich flora and fauna. Over the past decades, there has been a rapid decline in biological and landscape diversity. European Cultural Landscapes and ecosystems are modified, deteriorated and their existence is being threatened by a variety of driving forces, such as large scale demographic and socio-economic changes, Common Agricultural Policies, Trans-European traffic networks, cross-boundary pollution, agricultural, forestry and industrial production techniques, practices with regard to housing, redevelopment, tourism and leisure, as well as differences in landscape related policy and planning mechanisms at the national level. Europe has been the cornerstone in Cultural Landscape research due to a number of very active, devoted but dispersed research groups. With the emerging concepts of biodiversity, global change and natural heritage on the world agenda it has become an urgent task to assemble existing knowledge and develop overall understanding of man as a landscaping factor.