Juan Gasto1, Diego Subercaseaux1, Leonardo Vera2 and Tonci Tomic3 1Laboratorio de Ecosistemas, Facultad de Agronomia e Ingenieria Forestal, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago, 2Facultad de Agronomia, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso, Centro Regional de Innovation Hortofruticola de Valparaiso (CERES), Valparaiso, 3Consultor Ambiental, Corporation National del Cobre (CODELCO), Santiago,
Chile
1. Introduction
Is the XXI century an age of changes or is it a change of age? We must assume that new and more complex challenges are as necessary as deep culture and paradigmatic modifications. Growing complexity and the present-day territorial degradation has made it necessary that we transform the dominant science paradigm to face the sustainability problems. A new science is essential to improve the understanding of ourselves and our environmental life
[1-4].
The evolution of new technology, about ten thousand years ago, gave birth to the artificialization of nature and agriculture. The way said artificialization and management of the natural resources was determined basically by the factors and cultural tendencies. Culture can be defined as a learned system that produces an action and the way we relate with the world [5]. It is a set of subordinated suppositions and beliefs shared by a group or society, influencing their behavior [6].
The cultural landscape concept has emerged as a systemic transdisciplinary study object. To understand the present context it is basic to understand the cultural landscape concept, representing an expression of cultural activities in a territory, and as such, it is a key factor for the sustainability study [7]. Cultural landscape is a XXI century integrative concept.
Depredating conditions and trends of ecological-territorial systems and their effects on planetary life require an urgent change of the present dominant artificialization style and cultural landscape construction. We are part of the unique and interdepending web of life [8]. Complementary couplings of our construction cultural landscape style and nature organization result in healthy and sustainable cultural landscapes [9].
Starting from a historical ecological-territorial footprint and facing the relationship between agriculture, rurality and cultural landscape, the main objective of this work is to state the fundamentals to understand, develop, and construct a sustainable model adaptive of our age.
