An interdisciplinary approach to integrate a range of agro-landscape values as proposed by representatives of various disciplines

A Concerted Action has been initiated to discuss the assessment of sustainable agro-landscape values in the EU. The objective is to find out how criteria and parameters can be defined that would help farmers, authorities and politicians to manage the agro-landscape towards sustainability and socio/cultural appreciation. Such parameters should most probably consist of a general mainframe with compatible regional specifications. They could eventually be a base for income support/cross-compliance type of payments that farmers receive for their landscape management performance. Referring to the papers presented in this special issue, an effort is made to integrate the values proposed by the wide range of participating disciplines into a consistent and knowledgeable system. This is done by linking the different values as mentioned by the participants to the human motivations, phrased according to Maslow, that they are meant to serve. The disciplines present have been provisionally clustered into three areas with two main issues: (1) environment (resource conditions) and ecology (biological relations); (2) economy (flows of finances and services) and sociology (participative procedures); (3) psychology (appreciation and aesthetics) and anthropology (history and ethics). In these three realms, they are perceived as representing a double hierarchy of priorities: from the environment onward they represent the evolutionary option of basic human needs, evolving from sheer survival to the development of the individual potentials (food first, then ethics). From the cultural aspect of ethics to the environmental conditions they represent a more humanistic (humane), immaterial priority of ethical values, leading social and economic priorities to their environmental impacts. From this effort, indications are derived pointing at options for a coherent system of agro-landscape values, especially when seen in the perspective of sustainable land use. A table showing the various agro-landscape quality aspects is presented. Throughout this paper, the agro-landscape is perceived as an integrated product of human actions, of agro-technical, political and mental (ethical) character. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.