Bioenergy crops as new components of rural and agricultural landscapes: environmental and social impact, conservation, cultural heritage and economy.

• The ecosystems and the built heritage of agricultural landscapes require holistic management structures built on self-sustaining ecological cycles and the sustainable use of ecosystem services put into the context of economical and demographical conditions of local and regional development strategies. Furthermore, the natural and cultural heritage of rural landscapes can play an important role for boosting economic growth and social cohesion if protected and used in a sustainable way with a long term sustainability approach. Latest tourism trends show an increasing interest of tourists towards the discovery of the "soul" of the destination, out of the mass standardized tourism offer, and looking for a deep experience in a "genuine environment" expression of the local people and landscape. This is particularly important for those rural landscapes, where establishing large scale traditional monoculture of bio energy crops might threaten both previously well functioning agro-ecosystems and the cultural values of the agricultural landscapes. However, sensible cultivation of energy crops, particularly energy forests, in degraded areas or on territories of low soil quality may be beneficial and serve as means for ecological reconstruction and creation of new habitats. We propose to apply renewable energy based sustainable micro-regional development in rural areas, where ecologically acceptable level of bioenergy feedstock production supports not only organic agriculture including grey water irrigation and control of invasive species, but even the protection, reconstruction and sensible use of the built and intangible cultural heritage.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

bioenergy crops

agricultural landscapes

cultural heritage

biomass

agroforestry-systems

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)