Crossing the boundaries between agricultural law and landscape law: The rural landscape

Abstract

This chapter aims to highlight some juridical links between “landscape” and “agriculture”. The analysis of the legislation allows us to show the various features these close links have known during the time, moving from indifference or even opposition between the two areas of interest and coming to achieve a gradual harmonisation and integration. The first Italian regulations concerning landscapes used to neglect agricultural issues, mainly because they were inspired by aesthetic concerns, aiming to protect the Kant’s “natural beauty”. The contemporary concept of landscape (established by the European Landscape Convention in 2000 and, on the domestic side, by the Italian Code on Cultural Heritage and Landscape in 2004) is inclined to highlight both interaction between man and the environment and the importance of landscapes in building cultural identity, also as a consequence of the impact of agricultural activities on the land. In this line, the analysis of various regulatory frameworks (about town planning, landscape, agriculture, agri-tourism, conservation of nature, etc.) will allow us to point out the legal concept of “rural landscape” in the light of its characteristic legislation.