Exploring the relationship between land abandonment and landscape identity in traditional cultural landscapes: the case of Castelsaraceno, Italy

Traditional cultural landscapes are often valued for their multifunctionality and are increasingly being viewed as models for informing sustainable land management and landscape planning. However, land abandonment in Europe has contributed to the gradual decline and disappearance of traditional cultural landscapes. Although the impacts of land abandonment on traditional cultural landscapes have been widely examined from biophysical and socioeconomic perspectives, there is a knowledge gap in the study of the impacts from sociocultural ones. This paper contributes to filling this gap by exploring the relationship between land abandonment and landscape identity. To achieve this, we study the case of Castelsaraceno (Italy), a town which has historically boasted a rich agro-pastoral system and shepherding tradition, as an example of a region characterized by traditional cultural landscapes that has experienced sustained trends of land abandonment since the mid-20th century. Interviews were conducted with shepherds to understand their perceptions of land abandonment drivers, traditional land management practices, and social identity dynamics. Our findings highlight how land abandonment is perceived to have occurred predominantly through a lack of generational renewal, though underpinned by several other interacting factors which are both regionally- and site-specific, spanning to include economic conditions as well as rising social stigma and changing family dynamics. These land abandonment drivers have led to the decline of the traditional agro-pastoral practices in Castelsaraceno and to substantial changes in shepherds’ landscape identity. These changes are represented through a higher sense of disaffection towards the landscape, as well as a general sense of value loss. Amongst growing interest in land abandonment as an opportunity for novel rural development paradigms, such as nature restoration and nature-based tourism, we argue that future research and policy development concerning landscape planning should more thoroughly take past landscape dynamics into account, human experiences, values, and legacy knowledge upon which traditional cultural landscapes have been founded and sustained. Accounting for these elements can help guide transformative change and inform more sustainable and culturally sensitive landscape management planning.