Keywords

1 Introduction

In the context of cultural heritage preservation institutions in Brazil, the discussion about the category of cultural landscape is relatively recent. The same can be said regarding the creation of the relevant legal regulation, since, in the federal sphere, it occurred only in 2009, with the introduction of Ordinance No. 127 of the National Historic and Artistic Heritage Institute (IphanFootnote 1).

Nevertheless, the federal legislation that established the cultural heritage protection in the country, in 1937, already referred to a very close term—thus establishing as subject to preservation and, therefore, to landmarkingFootnote 2 —, the “landscapes.” One may think that such legislation originated the current category of cultural landscape; however, in analyzing the landmarkings carried out under such classification of landscape, it is noted that this is not exactly the same object and not the same type of approach. In fact, it was the 1988 Federal Constitution, in its 216th article, that created possibilities so this experiment of protection of Brazilian cultural landscapes could be made effective.

Adoption of this new category in Brazil took place under the influence of international practices that were occurring internationally. Among them, it should be noted the creation of the category of cultural landscape by UNESCO, as part of the World Heritage Convention, in 1992, and the establishment of Recommendation No. R(95)9 and of the European Landscape Convention, by the Council of Europe, respectively, in 1995 and in 2000.

In this sense, the aim of this article, initially, is to explain how, in Brazil, the legal protection of this category was organized, a purpose to which a new instrument was created, called seal (chancela in Portuguese). The objective is to distinguish specific contents of the landmarking of sites or landscape sets from that which is understood, currently, as cultural landscape. We must also clarify that this instrument of cultural landscape seal—created by Ordinance No. 127/2009—brings changes in relation to the study and legal preservation procedures in effect since 1937. Thus, the overall presentation of the experiences of studies developed under this category has the intention of highlighting the innovative character of a heritage policy, which has as its central pillars its democratization, expansion of representativeness in national territory, and social integration.

The second issue to be addressed here concerns the conceptual discussion on the very term cultural landscape, which currently appears in the World Heritage List—after UNESCO established it as a category of cultural heritage in 1992. When creating this new designation—under the justification that it provides an integrative view of the elements of nature and culture, as explained by Ribeiro (2011)—the world organization adopts a concept originated in traditional positivist geography. Thus, in order to discuss the concept, it is necessary to seek theoretical foundation in important works such as Carl Sauer, in which the author readdresses the original proposition of German geographers about natural landscape and cultural landscape, overcoming their dichotomy and explaining that they are not two different objects, but two contents of the same object: the landscape.

Finally, the third issue discussed here concerns the reflection about current limits and challenges of cultural landscape protection in the context of recent changes in the conduct of public policies for heritage in the country. If in the previous decade, 2000–2010, it was observed a broadening of horizons for heritage preservation, with new instruments created, such as Decree No. 3551/2000, which established mechanisms for protection of intangible heritage, in addition to the cultural landscape seal and significant increase in the number of landmarkings, especially of historical centers, on the contrary, the 2010–2015 period shows a decrease in actions, with interruption of studies on cultural landscape and possible revision of the seal ordinance. The purpose here is to highlight the likely losses resulting from the regression of this public policy.

2 Organization of Legal Protection: From Landscape Site to Cultural Landscape

As aforementioned, Decree-Law No. 25/37 created the possibility of landmarking “landscapes of notable feature,” distinguishing two elements that constitute this important condition: natural phenomena or human agency.

The first case comprises mountains, grottoes, caves, lagoons, islands, or vegetation reserves as examples of landscapes landmarked due to their aesthetic, ecological, or scientific value, resulting from natural processes and dynamics. Among these, Serra do Curral, landmarked in 1960 by the federal agency. It is a rock mass of iron ore, considered geographical landmark, natural environment, and climate filter of the city of Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais.

As product of human agency, an example is the old downtown area of Cachoeira, Bahia, landmarked as architectural and landscape ensemble in 1971. The landscape aspect, in this case, concerns the role of the physical site that gave the urban center an expressive aesthetic quality: the village, located in a valley along a curve of the Paraguaçu River, is surrounded by slopes of hills and short hills, where there are brooks and streams that, for many years, were the physical borders of the location and, until very recently, supplied the inhabitants with drinking water.

As can be observed in these two examples, designation as landscape covers a variety of objects of different types: from a hill or mountain range—which could also be classified as natural heritage—to that which was considered complement of urban groups, the natural surrounding that confers status of aesthetic quality. But in the end, the landmarking of that which appears as landscape is not different from other types of heritage, whether isolated buildings or ensembles. From the point of view of methodological procedures or from the point of view of value assignment and management, they are the same form of public action on heritage.

Noteworthy here, the category of cultural landscape, as established by the federal agency, in Brazil, brings other points of view and treatment of the issue, which should not be confused with these previous experiments of landscape presented here. The path that led to the formulation of this new view regarding the heritage will be described here based on the presentation of internal documents of the agency, which show clearly how a new instrument of protection and a new category of heritage were devised founded on the challenges posed by the concrete experience.

3 First Studies and Creation of Legal Corpus

The study that is at the origin of this new view is called National Immigration Routes (Iphan 2011a) and was the first proposal of cultural landscape seal developed by the agency, from 2003/04, in Santa Catarina, based on a large inventory conducted in municipalities that received immigrants from Germany, Italy, Poland, and Ukraine. The study enabled observing that the preservation of cultural heritage, predominantly of rural origin, would not be eminently accomplished within the framework of Iphan; it was necessary to create mechanisms of valorization and promotion to ensure the permanence of social groups in these rural areas, given the strong pressure from factors such as urbanization and industrialization. Thus, different spheres of the government—municipalities, state government, and ministries—started to act in conjunction in order to seek social and economic sustainability through the generation of jobs and income, factors that guarantee the maintenance of life in the countryside.

That is how, based on this project, it was outlined the central axis of the procedures involving the cultural landscape seal: the establishment of a protection network from the idea of shared management of the heritage. It is founded on the recognition that the preservation of cultural landscapes involves not only buildings, but also the environment where various social groups live and work on a daily basis, as well as their traditions, customs, and typical expressions. Therefore, this is a task that must be shared among different subjects: the various spheres of the government (municipal, state, and federal), in several of their segments of public policies (culture, education, tourism, agricultural development, fishery, among others), in addition to civil society, formed by residents of the locations where NGOs, social movements, and the private sector operate.

In the 2007–2008 period, several institutional documents were producedFootnote 3 based on the experiment developed in Santa Catarina and on the way of tackling the challenges that the work presented. Such documents were the basis for the legal regulation for institution of the cultural landscape, which was configured in Ordinance No. 127. It indicated both the need of creating what would be the new instrument of protection, in the form of cultural value seal, and also the new category of heritage to be protected, the cultural landscape.

The urban and rural spaces that – throughout the national territory – can be granted the seal as cultural landscape are those in which human experience or human science left marks or recognized values, making them support of the scenarios, knowledge, and achievements that exemplify, single out, or make exceptional the interaction between man and the natural environment. (Iphan/Depam/ 2007a, p. 3)

Some innovative aspects in the design of this policy must be mentioned:

  1. (a)

    the concept of cultural landscape as part of the national territory, a selected portion that includes unique relationships between social groups and the nature;

  2. (b)

    the need of establishing the protection network, involving public authorities and society, through the creation of channels of participation and social dialogue in the drafting of the proposal itself;

  3. (c)

    the understanding that the seal coexists with changes in the landscape, since culture is dynamic; however, the transformations must be integrated with ways of sustainable social and economic development, respecting the preservation of the attributes identified as of worth. In this sense, the cultural landscape seal differs from the category of the same name created by UNESCO, since this organization uses very strict criteria of authenticity and integrity. An already much debated is that of the title of Dresden, in Germany, taken by UNESCO due to the construction of a new bridge over the Elbe River (Figueiredo 2014).

These three aspects mentioned above clarify the difference between the experiences of landmarking of that which was considered landscape and the approach of cultural landscape. In the first case, the conception of landscape studies is not based on a selection of space, on the contrary, it is treated as a merely complementary issue; on the other hand, in the cultural landscape, the definition of a territorial selection is an initial and essential element, since it is the way of conceiving the object. Another difference is that the landmarking, including that of a landscape, with very few exceptions,Footnote 4 is a procedure conducted discretionarily, without social involvement or participation in decision-making; on the other hand, the cultural landscape calls for the creation of communication channels because the goal is to promote the shared management between different subjects. Finally, another differentiating factor is the more rigid character of landmarking, which can prevent changes to the landscape, while the cultural landscape assumes that culture is dynamic and subject to reappropriations and transformations.

Ordinance No. 127/2009 introduces the specific legal foundation of the cultural landscape; however, another document was essential for its preparation. The Carta de Bagé or Carta da Paisagem Cultural, published in August 2007, was the product of a technical-scientific meeting promoted by Iphan, in conjunction with several academic and public sector segments in Rio Grande do Sul, and can be considered the first document of public access and agreed upon widely regarding the protection of the cultural landscape. Importantly, in this document there is the proposition of a new legal instrument, in the form of certification, which subsequently is redefined as seal. It is important to note the content of the 6th article, as this explains that the certification must have “value of legal protection.” This is an important statement, which contradicts the view that the seal is a weak instrument, which effectively does not protect the cultural asset.

4 The Innovative Aspect: Cultural Policy with Social Commitment

Analysis of the studies developed by the agency on cultural landscape shows, additionally, another fundamental characteristic of this new policy has gone unnoticed by the authors that discuss the theme: actions geared towards the heritage can and should be formulated with the social commitment of improvement of living conditions and valorization of local contexts. As defined by the Carta da Bodoquena (Iphan 2007b): the cultural landscape, in last instance, relates more to people than to things, because the premises of conservation and preservation must meet human needs, whether of knowledge or of belonging to a culture and a place.

From this point of view, the following cultural landscape studies were conceived: National Immigration Routes, in Santa Catarina; the Brazilian Boats project, which worked in unique coastal contexts of the Brazilian naval heritage, such as the village of Elesbão (Amapá), Pitimbu (Paraíba), Valença (Bahia), and Camocim (Ceará); and the projects involving riverside and fishery communities such as the Vale do Ribeira, in São Paulo, and the São Francisco River Mouth, in Sergipe and Alagoas.

The Brazilian Boats project, for example, sought to identify little-known places of the Brazilian coast in which naval carpentry techniques still remained in the daily life of isolated social groups, in situation of high-pressure of disappearance because of the modernization that has replaced the wooden boats with other industrial materials, such as fiberglass or aluminum. In addition to the traditional know-how of naval carpentry, these coastal contexts combined artisanal fishing and intangible manifestations that are alive in the social fabric. Thus, the seal was intended not only for an inventory of places and uses, but for a diagnosis of the situation of survival, the basis for implementation of safeguard actions that resulted in the strengthening of this traditional use, combined with public actions for the improvement of living and working conditions. (Iphan/Depam/Coordenação da Paisagem Cultural 2011)

In this same social perspective, it should be noted the Vale do Ribeira Cultural Landscape study, from 2007. It is a region with rich potential of heritage, but that, during the 20th century, remained outside the economic valorization processes conducted through the modernization of railroads and industrialization, in São Paulo. Known for its poverty rates and the absence of public policies, the region also had remained out of the map of heritage landmarked by the federal agency, which highlights the social significance of the proposal. From the point of view of territorial selection and conception, the landscape was thought based on the relationship between social groups and a central element: the Ribeira de Iguape River.

Thus, the study is founded on the concept of the Ribeira de Iguape River as an element of mediation in the construction of identity, culture, and regional history. A relationship that is (re)signified in time, surpassing the initial sense of livelihood, of means of transport, and of means of communications to become, contemporarily, the element around which the collective memory is founded. Ribeira de Iguape is a manner of cultural corridor, via which goods, objects, and material values were transported and exchanged, in addition to ways of life, traditions, techniques, knowledge, information. A corridor that connected intangible and tangible flows essential for the social production. (Nascimento and Scifoni 2010, p. 35)

The cultural diversity and richness in the Vale do Ribeira region is related to the different social groups that historically have lived there, among them caiçaras, quilombolas, riverine populations, and indigenous peoples. The region is also important for having constituted the first nucleus of Japanese immigration in the country, where the colonists pioneered the development of cultivation of Assam tea and of reeds, in addition to having left as heritage a vernacular architecture that combines Japanese techniques and local knowledge, as observed in Figs. 10.1 10.2, 10.3, 10.4.

Fig. 10.1
figure 1

Tea factory shimizu

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Fig. 10.2
figure 2

First Assam tea seedlings, planted in Brazil, located in the municipality of Registro. Photos of the author, 2008

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Fig. 10.3
figure 3

Episcopal Anglican Church, the first to settle in the country

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Fig. 10.4
figure 4

Church of St. Francis Xavier, saint of devotion of Japanese settlers, installed on the hill next to the Ribeira de Iguape River. Photos of the author, 2008

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In this sense, the study for the seal in the Vale do Ribeira region sought to highlight the heritage richness and potential, promoting the valorization and protection of heritage as a way to promote the improvement of socioeconomic conditions in the region. (Iphan 2009).

The Dossier of the Vale do Ribeira region was completed in 2009, indicating a perimeter of protection and general guidelines that were built in conjunction with various local partners; however, to date it has not been submitted to final deliberation. In 2012, the project was nominated as a semi-finalist of the Water and Cultural Heritage Award, of the National Water Agency (ANA).

Another study focusing on riverine and coastal communities and was that of the São Francisco River Mouth, whose obtention of subsidies for Dossier of Seal was finished in 2014. The area was chosen due to the uniqueness of the ways of life of local communities, marked by the encounter of fresh and salt waters that produced this river mouth’s physical exceptionality. Among the final recommendations, it is noteworthy the strategic role conferred to heritage, as a vector of improvement of living and employment conditions.

The future of the São Francisco River Mouth Cultural Landscape is strongly connected to the value of the heritage as the mainstay of a new economy. The landscape is an ally in this process, as it represents the memory of a society’s collective expression, an organically built social product, hence a heritage tied to the historical dimension. Furthermore, it only exists through the materiality of the territory. Therefore, its heritage value is also tied to the spatial dimension. (Iphan 2014a p. 222)

5 Cultural Landscape and the Conceptual Problem

In creating a new category within the World Heritage List, from 1992, UNESCO employed a concept from traditional German geography, conceived between the late 19th and early 20th centuries; the concept of cultural landscape (Ribeiro 2007). The intention here is neither go back to the origins and nor reaffirm the contents involved in the first definition of the term, since it was linked to positivist postulates, currently outdated. The intention, first of all, is to understand how this term is developed within a segment of geographical science, the cultural geography, and what is its strict content.

In the history of geographical thought, it is acknowledged the role of German geographers in the creation of the concepts of natural landscape and cultural landscape, treated as distinct and separated objects or things, as explained by Jean Tricart (1982 p. 13/14):

According to the German geographers usually based on natural sciences, the landscape consists of several concrete elements of the environment: topography, plants, soil. However, they do not register modifications made by man and, if applicable, they distinguish between the natural landscape (Naturlandschaft) and the cultural landscape (Kulturalandschaft), which may have nothing of natural.

Carl Sauer, in 1925, would overcome these dichotomous concepts, which he did with a text entitled The morphology of landscape. Sauer was the founder and leading exponent of cultural geography. In this text he says that which many still do not understand about the two terms, natural landscape and cultural landscape. He clarifies that these are not two distinct objects, but two parts of an object that is unique, the landscape.

The landscape, according to the author, is an integrating concept, in his words “a bilateral unit,” which contains two dimensions. One is natural, that is, the physical site, the sum of all natural resources or the “first half of the landscape content,” which he calls the natural landscape. The other half of the landscape concerns the facts of human culture, the forms of use of the natural substrate, a dimension that the author calls a cultural landscape. (Sauer 1998)

The objects that exist together in the landscape exist in interrelationship. We affirm that they constitute a reality as a whole that is not expressed by a consideration of the component parts separately, that the area has form, structure, and function and hence position in a system and that it is subject to development, change, and end. (Sauer 1998, p. 22)

It is clear that they are not separate realities, as if they existed individually, but parts of the same landscape, dissected by the view of the geographer. The sense of separation of the single object into two layers, parts, or halves, as the author says, is related to the research method he proposes: the morphological method, which focuses on systematically organizing the landscape contents, which arranges the phenomena, integrating them into a structure.

What is crucial in this discussion is that—in overcoming the German thought that defined such concepts as two different objects—Sauer resignifies the terms, which according to the cultural geography of the time could no longer be seen separately, but as parts of a whole.

However, UNESCO established this new category in 1992, hindering this understanding and worsening even more the misunderstanding, which reinforced the idea of the existence of an autonomous cultural landscape, an object itself. The irony is that the purpose of the international organization in establishing this category was just the opposite, that is, to recognize the importance of works that are conjugated product of human beings and nature.

In order to stay true to the concepts and their contents, it is considered that UNESCO should have used the concept of landscape, for inclusion of this new category in the context of the so-called cultural heritage. Nevertheless, by choosing to define the term landscape, UNESCO erred into two troubled paths: on the one hand it disregarded the conceptual overcoming by Carl Sauer, regressing to the traditional view of German geography, which takes the cultural landscape out of the whole of which it is part; on the other hand, it committed a tautology, since every landscape is a cultural object, in essence.

Although created in 1992, entries under this new category were few in number, during this first decade of 1990, with only 16 titles conferred by UNESCO. From 2000, the situation changed, with a total of 63 titles of cultural landscape conferred. The year that presented the highest number of entries was 2004, with 13 entries in the World Heritage List. In the case of Brazil, the country succeeded in obtaining its first entry in 2012, with the title “Rio de Janeiro city, landscapes between the mountain and the sea.” (Figueiredo 2014).

Despite the conceptual problems raised here, the data above show that the cultural landscape is established in the sphere of actions for cultural heritage preservation as an experiment already consolidated, making innocuous any attempt to rethink the concepts employed. However, it is always worthwhile to remind the historicity of the concepts that are at the origin of the institutional practices.

In addition, conceptual problems remain, becoming even more complex, in the separation between theory and practice. Among other international documents dealing with the subject, we recall here the Recommendation R(95)9, drawn up by the Council of Europe, in 1995, which, in addition to using the term landscape, also includes another designation, “areas of cultural landscape,” as specific and delimited parts of landscapes. The same Council of Europe, in 2000, established the European Landscape Convention, document that employs, this time, only the concept of landscape.

The variety of the terminology used by the international organizations for the same object and that has been defined without the incorporation and the contribution of scientific production, in their specific fields, has shown that the conceptual problem of cultural landscapes is still far from being solved.

6 Final Considerations: Limits and Challenges of a Policy in Context of Changes

Currently, Cultural Landscape Seal model projects are developed all regions of the country and their application will be of great importance in the policies that effectively think culture and cultural heritage as foundations of the human condition, of citizenship, and of the construction of a better country, and able to identify in itself values that can lead into future paths that are always better. (Dalmo 2011, p. 19). Our emphasis

Despite the innovations that the cultural landscape seal brought to heritage policies in Brazil, whose contributions can be measured based on the documents prepared, but also on the content of the dossiers, studies, and proposals developed in several regions of the country, from 2013, it is observed a slow and continuous process of paralyzation and reflow in the activities related to this topic. In the agency’s official website, today, there is no information about these projects that were presented previously, so that, for a researcher who begins to address this issue, many doubts remain about what was effectively carried out.

After a relatively short period—2006 to 2011—of significant advances in the field of cultural heritage, with the opening of new work fronts, increasing the number of landmarkings, with the development of regulations for internal procedures, and with the organization of administrative aspects, the current moment points to a deviation that jeopardizes the achievements of recent years.

According to the Iphan Activities Report for the 2011–2014 period, there was an institutional decision to suspend the continuation of the various cultural landscape studies that were being carried out. The rationale for such decision, as noted below, would be the fact that the seal studies had not been completed, given the extent of the work and efforts required for its progression.

Due to requiring agreements with local and regional entities, in addition to demanding a wide gamut of local development actions – such as fostering of the production of cultural base, promotion of tourism and use of land—, the complexity of the Cultural Landscape Management procedure caused all processes already started to not be completed. This liability led, in 2013, to the decision of suspending temporarily the instruction of the Brazilian Cultural landscape certification processes, which was reported and approved by the Advisory Board during its 75th Meeting, in May 2014. At the same time, it was observed a need to move forward in the production of a diagnosis of the processes and of the situation in relation to the territorial portions surveyed, as well as of the efforts started in order to obtain agreements. (Iphan 2014b, p. 24)

As can be apprehended from this new moment of public policies, the cultural landscape seal is no longer part of the priorities of the federal institution and also it is no longer considered important and with an innovative character, as previously acknowledged. In the report of the period indicated above the item concerning this topic is as brief as possible. The paralyzation is justified, but in the information, figures, tables, charts, or maps there is no indication of the ongoing studies and, also, no mention of advances or limitations. On the contrary, in items relating to other instruments of preservation such as landmarking, register of intangible heritage, register of archaeological assets, or recognition of rail heritage, there is much characterization in data and information. Absences suggest much about intentions that were not revealed in the text of the report.

Here the aim is to make a brief discussion regarding the cultural landscape studies, indicating the major losses.

Firstly, it is noted the frustration of expectations encouraged in the communities involved, with the promise of a heritage identification and protection policy founded on the premise of dialogue, of listening, of exchange of ideas, and of social participation. The decision to halt that is not taken in conjunction with partners corresponds, specifically, to unilateral disruption of dialogue.

Additionally to frustration due to the cessation of a policy of dialogue and collective construction of heritage, the paralyzation appears as loss of credibility and end of a relationship of trust established in the municipalities in relation to the federal agency, which ultimately reinforces that view, historically constituted, of discretionary, vertical, and authoritarian policies.

It should also be remembered that the paralyzation means a waste of human and material resources invested in the projects, which due to their specific characteristics require a “long time of duration,” the time to build relationships of trust with the subjects involved. Relationships that, once undone and discredited, hardly return to the same condition.

On the other hand, the effect of discontinuity of policies grows more deleterious, considering projects that were geared towards contexts and realities that are socially excluded from the official map of heritage, in relation to which the intention was to promote social valorization through identification and protection actions. These are popular groups, underappreciated in their heritage, historically devalued as subjects, invisible in national memory, as are those partners involved in the projects: riverine populations, artisanal fishermen, caiçaras, quilombolas, impoverished peasants, immigrant settlers.

Internally to the agency, from the point of view of professionals who were involved in these studies, the paralyzation can be seen as discouraging, since the work done for the seal cannot be seen only as eminently technical, bureaucratic, cold, and supposedly neutral; it is also the construction of relationships, social ties, and local dialogues that are deeply enriching for their professional training.

Considering this context of losses and limits, the major challenge for the cultural landscape projects is how to continue to invest in strengthening the relationship established with civil society in the localities, lest the efforts carried out during this period are not rendered devoid of significance. Only through local protagonism it is possible to overcome the limits and weaknesses of heritage preservation, since preservation is intended to benefit these groups. Therefore, they have legitimacy to claim the presence of public policies.