Disintegration of Italian rural landscapes to international environmental agreements

In Italy, the first law that puts landscape and historical buildings under public control was implemented in 1922. While this represents a significant achievement for those times, for that law landscape essentially has an historical and aesthetic connotation, without any explicit reference to the components of flora, fauna and geology. Today, many protection policies and initiatives are still biased by the lack of reference to the intrinsic value that biodiversity and ecosystem services have for the maintenance of traditional landscapes, as well as for the survival of the human species. The priority accorded to historical and aesthetic values can lead to a lack of attention to the complex relationship binding the natural environment, agriculture and urban processes. Hence, there is a need in Italy for an increased awareness of the functional role exerted by agriculture as a link between ecosystems and ‘‘techno’’ systems. The complex and polysemic concept of landscape plays a crucial role in designing new strategies for the rural territories, their economies and their cultures. Moving towards a shared and integrated strategy for multifunctional agriculture involves a substantial revision of the general objectives of growth and development, combining conservation and innovation. In this respect, the full integration of the Strategic Environmental Assessment in regional planning processes is one possible method for building a framework in which policies to promote the development, protection and enhancement of landscapes can work in an integrated way. These observations lead to some final conclusions on the network logic which should drive the integration process of planning and evaluation, along with some reflections on the Italian programme for inland areas.