Open sessions > S.3 – The Diversity of Outland Use in Past and Present. Indistinct Traces of Diverse Practices

S.3 – The Diversity of Outland Use in Past and Present. Indistinct Traces of Diverse Practices

Chair – Pille Tomson, Estonian University of Life Sciences | EMU – Department of Landscape Management and Nature Conservation. Vestbö-Franzén ådel, Jönköping County Museum

Abstract: The session aims to gather insights on how past agricultural outland practices formed European landscapes and what the legacies of these landscapes are today. Outland and outlying areas have traditionally been connected to extensive land use. Biodiversity has benefitted enormously from the mosaic landscapes resulting from different outland-regimes. Today numerous former outlands serve as core areas of protection. 

The effects of haymaking and cattle herding are well studied, while the impact of slash and burn cultivation, prescribed burning or the collecting of leaves and twigs for fodder is less understood.

Two main questions arise: How do we study former outland uses that leave few and indistinct traces? Here, interdisciplinary studies using a multitude of different data are probably the best way forward. Key disciplines and data sources are pollen analysis, historical maps, archeological excavations, anthracology and the study of historical and ethnographical records.  These methods and sources combined have the potential to give new insights into the use of outlands and their former development.

The second question deals with outlying landscapes today, their characteristics and their values. How do we manage and protect the traits of former human land-use regimes in historical outlands, and how do we prevent them from being overgrown by wilderness or turned into monocultures? The historical outlands are ancient cultural landscapes with high biodiversity, which provides important ecosystem services and may become an asset for future food security and quality of life.

Program

Tuesday, Clermont-Ferrand, 14:00-16:00 – S.3

Chair – Pille Tomson, Estonian University of Life Sciences | EMU – Department of Landscape Management and Nature Conservation / Vestbö-Franzén ådel, Jönköping County Museum

• Ådel Vestbö-Franzén, Traces of tilling. Slash and burn cultivation, the cadastral maps and the clearance cairns
• Clas Tollin, How to turn time backwards? The Historical landscape at Linnaeus's Hammarby
•  Pille Tomson, Kalev Sepp, The distribution of slash and burn lands in Livonia in 19th century