Rural Landscapes in an Oceanic Volcanic Island

Abstract

For a quarter of a century, the territorial dynamics of El Hierro have been influenced by the tertiarization of its economy, fundamentally focused on non-intensive tourist activity (green or nature tourism, hiking, rural tourism, sports in nature), causing a gradual abandonment of agricultural activities and, therefore, of their agricultural landscapes. However, it is still possible to recognize today the traces of traditional agricultural landscapes of great interest, both for heritage and for food production. It is then necessary to carry out a typology of these agro-cultural spaces with the aim of delimiting them, knowing their production systems, conserving and organizing them and, what is more remarkable, proposing for the future those ways of managing them. That can contribute to the sustainable development of the island, further justifying the declaration of the Island as a Biosphere Reserve.