Cultural Heritage—Possibilities for Land-Centered Societal Development

Social and natural science knowledge can help us understand, evaluate, and intervene in the world, e.g., for the continuation of cultural heritage, for positively influencing land use, and for societal (notably sustainable) development, as shown in the twenty-four research studies in this book (about territory in multiple countries). Knowledge useful for sustaining cultural heritage linked with land use, and promoting development, may include contemporary science, or may be more traditional and informal knowledge. Knowledge may be primarily practical, (sometimes business-related, sometimes technological, part of local customs, household-centered, etc.) Knowledge may be displayed in traditional preparation of food, or in traditional farming and cattle-breeding; or in advanced genetics. These twenty-four research studies communicate knowledge useful for commerce, governance, science, and cultural exchange. Worldwide, but also at local and regional levels, cultural heritage is closely associated with land use (e.g., rural and, increasingly, urban culture and land). Changes need to be studied historically, to appreciate past and present, and to reach actively for a better future (which conserves some values rooted in the past). Food and drink, travel and tourism, cities (modest or expansive), country-sides, landscapes (agricultural, forested, urban, or other), vividly experienced, can fascinate and delight. Through attention to cultural heritage, humans can compare and contrast very different, even very distant locales, motivating both pilgrimages far away from home, and love of one’s own more nearby surroundings, our homelands, or neighboring places. But societal development may also generate unease about possible dangers to, and losses of valuable aspects of cultural heritage, dangers and losses about land quality, and associated phenomena of innumerable sorts: wars, cultural decline, food insecurity, and so on. Such factors also figure in the analyses in this book.