Introduction

The European cultural landscape is a product of environmental conditions and historical and present land use. Human impact on the land has changed it into the landscape that we know now with all its characteristics. The peculiarity of Europe compared to most other continents is that the European landscape is characterized by a long-term relatively stable development and long traditions in culture and land use. Nature and culture are mutually adapted. Visions on what the landscape is and how it should be valued differ regionally among its users and this diversity led to a great cultural diversity in landscape, however, with always the same building blocks. In the past the vision on the land and landscapes has been influenced by farmers, landowners, painters and writers, but now more and more ‘global’ and ‘urban’ influences such as television, marketing strategies, health visions, animal welfare and internet have an impact on the vision of the landscape. Will the European cultural landscape be a vanishing past, will it be a product to be conserved, will it be adapted to future uses or will it be used as a sales product for tourism? How will our landscapes then develop? The landscape that we discussed in the workshop is the landscape of Europe where changes might be expected to happen varying from abandonment to intensification of production and intensification of consumption: natural, cultural, industrial and ‘McDonalds’ landscapes.