Landscape: A New Vector in the Concept of Sustainable Development?

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to discuss if landscape can be associated with sustainable development at the conceptualization level and in its program of operation research. It starts with the analysis of the concept of sustainable development in an historical perspective that put attention to the way it was constructed, as the emergence of environmental threats was imposing a new reflection to decision makers. Then it analyses the fundamental issues that this conceptualization put to the three pillars of approach: economic, environmental and social, and the way they must reconcile. Finally the concept of landscape is introduced and its role in the support of sustainable development is discussed. The landscape as a concept that, both, incorporates a vision of the global system of interactions between natural and human aspects in the territory, and a practice of intervention on the area (aiming to develop the quality of living from a perspective of intergenerational equity) emerges as an integral element of sustainable development concerns.