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Innovativeness of farming strategies can enhance the sustainability of European farming systems. However, this is constrained by the many requirements faced by producers to secure their financial sustainability in the shorter-term. In such context, territorial conditions, materializing mainly at the local to regional levels, influence the efficiency of such strategies. This paper examines the diversity of situations across Europe. Our conceptual framework draws from the concepts of space, place and landscape. Space is a dimension of farming that is reflective of its scale, extension and location. The concept of place allows considering social attachment to the land, whilst landscape relates to the connections between nature, culture and economics that shape rural territories. In this paper, we address six regional case studies comprising various agricultural commodities. For each of these, we evaluate the influence of place, space and landscape in driving the sustainability of different farming systems and strategies. To bring up the territorial and governance dimensions of sustainability, our approach to also considered communities and institutions. Case study data and information were co-constructed in close collaboration with multiple stakeholders, using a mixed range of quantitative and qualitative methods of social enquiry. Our findings indicate how the territorial conditions that are contingent to European regions and localities directly impact on the sustainability of farming strategies and systems, with space, place and landscape each playing a key role this process.

Silvopastoral systems (SPs) are present all around Europe, being still important elements of cultural identity of many marginal, stress-prone regions. They are managed mostly as extensive, low-input farming. SPs are used for multiple purposes which generate timber and non-timber forest products, high-quality foods, livestock and game products, recreational and cultural services. SPs have the potential to be an outstanding High Nature Value farming system, however, they are currently facing both environmental and economic threats that might compromise their long-term persistence either by agricultural intensification or by abandonment. In recent decades, needs and challenges emerged in the modern society have led to a new concept of land use. Bioenergy, carbon sequestration, control of nutrient leaching, halting of biodiversity loss and recreational uses could increase economic profitability of SPs. To cope with these new functions, there is a need of innovative techniques and specific policy measures to solve those threats and reinforce their social and ecological roles.

Presentation The Iberian working oak woodlands (dehesas and montados) are outstanding High Nature Value (HNV) farming systems in a European context. However, management practices applied are not always appropriate to maintain their sustainability. Ensuring tree regeneration, soil protection, and landscape mosaics are essential for their long-term conservation. Policy measures should bear this in mind and consider these priorities in an integrated way. The main decisions are now made at national level, in the Portuguese case, and at the regional level, in the Spanish. There should therefore be room for specific schemes considering the specific land use systems in each country/region. Rural Development Program gives priority to the HNV farming systems, especially within the so-called agri-environmental measures, but these measures will only work if supported by pro-active and expert advisory systems. Current efforts to address these needs in a transnational network through co-operation projects between both countries are presented and discussed. The recent elaboration of the Green Book on Dehesas and Montados (a concise report supported by most associations of land-managers and producers) is an opportunity for those who have knowledge on the functioning of this system to work together, to gather existing expertise, to assess opportunities and to propose actions that can be implemented through policies. And in order to give the Montado and Dehesas the acknowledgment they deserve, we should join forces and come up with a joint Iberian Strategy for the Montados and Dehesas, reflected in a joint document and joint actions at European level as well as parallel actions in the two countries.

This book focuses on understanding farming transition pathways towards sustainability, using case studies from Europe. It assesses the utility of the multi-level perspective in transition theory for addressing contemporary issues and identifies future research needs, making it an essential read for researchers of rural or agricultural change.

This book focuses on understanding farming transition pathways towards sustainability, using case studies from Europe. It assesses the utility of the multi-level perspective in transition theory for addressing contemporary issues and identifies future research needs, making it an essential read for researchers of rural or agricultural change

The work presented in this report is part of the effort to define the landscape state and diversity indicator in the\ud frame of COM (2006) 508 “Development of agri-environmental indicators for monitoring the integration of\ud environmental concerns into the common agricultural policy”. The Communication classifies the indicators\ud according to their level of development, which, for the landscape indicator is “in need of substantial\ud improvements in order to become fully operational”. For this reason a full re-definition of the indicator has been\ud carried out, following the initial proposal presented in the frame of the IRENA operation (“Indicator Reporting on\ud the Integration of Environmental Concerns into Agricultural Policy”). The new proposal for the landscape state\ud and diversity indicator is structured in three components: the first concerns the degree of naturalness, the\ud second landscape structure, the third the societal appreciation of the rural landscape. While the first two\ud components rely on a strong bulk of existing literature, the development of the methodology has made evident\ud the need for further analysis of the third component, which is based on a newly proposed top-down approach.\ud This report presents an in-depth analysis of such component of the indicator, and the effort to include a social\ud dimension in large scale landscape assessment.

[Departement_IRSTEA]Territoires [TR1_IRSTEA]DTAM; International audience; Landscape means an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors (Article 1 definitions, European Landscape Convention, Firenze 20.X.2000). The definition is clear and nowadays well accepted. Trickier is to progress in the sense of identifying landscape quality objectives, as also demanded in the Convention, and which should depend on the public demand of these landscapes, i.e. their cultural and amenity values. New EU policies focusing on the development of Europe's rural areas, including its broad variation of landscapes, and specially the New European Model of Agriculture, which stresses the territorial role of agriculture, increases the need to better understand how these different landscapes are valuated by people, and how farming may contribute to so-called landscape quality. Indeed, people do value landscape patterns, elements, and their combinations (Dramstad et al 2006). They are also able to express their preferences for certain landscape patterns, but there are still challenges to assess these preferences taking care of the diversity and complexity of the landscape (Alkomany 1999), and to combine these preferences with the increasing number of models assessing how policy options can modify the chain "on-farm modifications > agricultural land use changes > landscape pattern > adequacy to people needs and expectations" and reversely how human expectations can be considered in the design of specific policy options can be coordinated with each other. This paper aims to describe a landscape amenities evaluation tool that aims at filling this gap. This tool is based on the identification of an optimum range of landscape composition, defined through a survey assessment to user groups or expert panels, and its relation, through selected indicators, to the landscape composition resulting from different scenarios.

International audience; A structured set of indicators for integrated assessment of future agri- environmental policies

This PD starts with a brief review of the start-of-the-art in agricultural multifunctionality research, highlighting the fact that much of the current literature on the subject is qualitative rather than quantitative. From this literature, we focus on a definition of multifunctionality that is advocated by the European Union whereby the provision of commodity and non-commodity outputs are couched in terms of their joint production'. We then present a formalised economic framework to guide the development of multifunctionality indicators based on this concept of joint production. This formalised economic framework is then used to provide a backdrop to the identification of theoretically plausible mathematical relationships between commodity and non-commodity outputs which, until now, have not been systematically articulated in the multifunctionality literature. Testing our framework and our thinking against real-world data is currently hampered because of logistical difficulties in acquiring that data; an issue not unique to SEAMLESS but rather a wider phenomenon encountered by multifunctionality researchers throughout Europe. Therein explains the largely theoretical (albeit quantitative) nature of this PD. Our work will continue until the data have been acquired and analysed.

Innovativeness of farming strategies can enhance the sustainability of European farming systems. However, this is constrained by the many requirements faced by producers to secure their financial sustainability in the shorter-term. In such context, territorial conditions, materializing mainly at the local to regional levels, influence the efficiency of such strategies. This paper examines the diversity of situations across Europe. Our conceptual framework draws from the concepts of space, place and landscape. Space is a dimension of farming that is reflective of its scale, extension and location. The concept of place allows considering social attachment to the land, whilst landscape relates to the connections between nature, culture and economics that shape rural territories. In this paper, we address six regional case studies comprising various agricultural commodities. For each of these, we evaluate the influence of place, space and landscape in driving the sustainability of different farming systems and strategies. To bring up the territorial and governance dimensions of sustainability, our approach to also considered communities and institutions. Case study data and information were co-constructed in close collaboration with multiple stakeholders, using a mixed range of quantitative and qualitative methods of social enquiry. Our findings indicate how the territorial conditions that are contingent to European regions and localities directly impact on the sustainability of farming strategies and systems, with space, place and landscape each playing a key role this process.

In Europe, landscape research has a long tradition of drawing on several disciplines. ‘National schools’ of landscape research developed, which were related to the characteristic landscapes found in the different countries and to specific linguistic meanings and legal traditions when using landscape related concepts. International co-operation demands a certain harmonization of these concepts for better mutual understanding. The 2000 European Landscape Convention provided an important momentum to rethink research, policy and management of landscapes from the perspective of sustainable development and participatory planning. Landscape ecology as a transdisciplinary science with a dynamic and holistic perspective on landscape offers a great potential for an integrative approach. The specificity of the European landscape research rests on its long history and on integration based on the great diversity of the landscapes, characterised by an intimate relationship between the varied natural environment and the different cultural traditions which define the identity of countries, regions and people. Within a unified Europe, with increasing international and trans-border co-operation and increasing common environmental problems, the creation of a specific European Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE-Europe), in addition to the existing international association and its national chapters, became justified by the need for a collaborative endeavour to address the specific problems of landscapes in Europe and to stimulate co-operation between landscape ecologists in research, education and practice.