SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES TO PROTECT AND CONSERVE LANDSCAPES AND THE MEMORY OF THE MOUNTAINS

IRIS: INSPIRE AND PROMOTE RURAL HERITAGE

Since 2020, the GEODE laboratory, Mixed Research Unit (UMR 5602) of the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the University of Toulouse 2 Jean Jaurès (UT2J), along with the universities of Genoa (Italy), Granada (Spain), Durham (UK) and Montenegro (UoM), carried out together research into the living rural heritage and sustainable practices of mountain communities in Europe, focusing on study sites in 5 countries: France, Italy, Montenegro, Spain and United Kingdom. These territories have the particularity of having been relatively disadvantaged over time, as they are generally far from socio-economic and urban centers. But they are still alive and in use today. However, all of them have very little activity compared to the end of the 19th or beginning of the 20th century when the different sites were at their peak in terms of demographics and use of landscapes and environmental resources.

In this context, the IRIS project presents itself as an international collaborative project that supports the use and sustainable development of mountain territories and their rural landscapes, integrating the four pillars of sustainability – cultural, social, economic, and environmental.

For several thousand years, these territories were the cradles of cultures and economies which developed within a changing and restrictive environment on which they depended.

Many of these landscapes are still quite preserved today despite constant threats such as depopulation, aging populations, abandonment of ancient sustainable practices, loss of traditional knowledge, land use change linked to public planning and global economic trends. However, these territories persist thanks to the perseverance of local communities and/or territorial stakeholders and benefit society as a whole through their culture, their traditions and their know-how, constituting in fact a powerful tool for the future in the present and urgent ecological transition.

The IRIS project mapped some examples of these mountain territories and aimed to advance their understanding, protection, use and promotion. The project studied and developed an approach to the conservation of “living rural heritage”, promoting the concept of “protection through use” of mountain landscapes and neighboring rural territories. Through collaborative and participatory research at the local level as well as knowledge exchange at the transcontinental level, IRIS:

• Demonstrated how knowledge of historical processes and land use practices can support the conservation and sustainable development of upland landscapes;

• Defined an approach to the conservation and good practices of “living rural heritage” through which local actors can integrate their cultural values, their expertise and their local traditions;

• Supported collaboration between public institutions and local communities, as well as participation in the observation, protection, sustainable development and use of mountain landscapes;

• Provided local, national and European policy makers with new tools that could enable them to take into account the historical dimension of rural places and implement a “living rural heritage” approach in decision-making;

• Created a new research framework that advances knowledge of the highlands' cultural heritage, its values and its social and environmental benefits;

• Communicated and disseminated its research results at local, national and international levels, particularly at the European level and beyond.

In this blog, you will find the example of living rural heritage from the study site on which the GEODE laboratory has centered its work in Montenegro a part of the IRIS project – Sinjajevina.

Thanks to all the research carried out within the IRIS project (including in Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom), society-environment synergies and phenomena of resilience of local communities in the face of recent socio-environmental changes have been revealed. These aspects are highlighted in the exhibition which we provide the link to below, and which has already been presented in Montenegro and Italy in 2023.

The stories presented in this blog and in this exhibition carry a message that can guide us in the necessary ecological and cultural transition that awaits us and of which scientific research constitutes one of the key pillars.