Red Books for threatened Mediterranean landscapes as an innovative tool for holistic landscape conservation. Introduction to the western Crete Red Book case study

Abstract

In view of the alarming threats to our planet Earth and its natural and cultural diversity, the IUCN World Conservation Organization must broaden the scale of its efforts from the species and ecosystem level to the landscape level. For this purpose new, more comprehensive strategies and powerfuls tools, based on holistic landscape planning and dynamic conservation management, are urgently needed. The Mediterranean Basin, presently undergoing an alarming process of biological, cultural and scenic degradation can serve as a good example for these needs. Here, as elsewhere, almost all conservation efforts have been devoted to the protection of restricted areas such as nature reserves or parks without much regard for the fate of the open landscape as a whole and the need for the conservation and restoration of its great natural and cultural assets. In order to gain greater public awareness and apprehension of these threats, to change the attitudes of politicians and decision-makers, and to provide practical guidance for holistic, sustainable and multibeneficial land use planning and management, a new tool of ‘Red Books for Threatened Landscapes’ is offered. These should present in clear non-technical terms, with ample maps and illustrations, recent, adverse biological, ecological, cultural and socio-economic changes in highly valuable and not yet irreversibly despoiled landscapes and their future threats, and suggest alternative, sustainable land use strategies with sounder conservation and restoration options. The Western Crete study, is the first Mediterranean Red Book case study, carried out by a multinational and multidisciplinary team. It will serve as an important example for a Red Book blueprint, to be prepared by the IALE-IUCN-CESP Working Group on Red Books for Threatened Landscapes.