Sustainable Management of Cultural Landscape
(SUMCULA)
European Union Erasmus + Strategic Partnership
October 2017 - December 2020
From a landscape management viewpoint, the need to preserve natural, cultural and intangible values, and develop them from an evolutionary perspective into sustainable living environments, has always been of great importance. This is true even for particularly sensitive cultural landscapes, which are constantly changing, and need to be developed to meet the requirements of present day society. Furthermore, the fast-growing tourism industry requires sustainable management practices so that the development of cultural landscapes into touristic products avoids the adverse effect of mass tourism and does not compromise sustainability issues.
Cultural landscapes are sites associated with a significant event, activity, person or group of people. They can be grand estates, farmlands, public gardens and parks, college campuses, cemeteries, scenic highways, and industrial sites or works of art, narratives of cultures, and expressions of regional identity. Cultural landscapes can range from thousands of hectares of rural tracts of land to a small homestead with a front yard of less than one hectare. Like historic buildings and districts, they reveal aspects of a country’s origins and development through their form, features, and the ways they were used. Cultural landscapes also reveal much about our evolving relationship with the natural world.
Project Deliverables
The objective of this partnership is the development of courses and didactic resources on Sustainable Management of Cultural Landscapes, Regional Development and Cultural Heritage to be conducted at a Master’s level.
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Curriculum development: Sustainable Management of Cultural Landscapes, Regional Development and Cultural Heritage based on a number of cases
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Case studies of cultural landscape management
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Workshops, conferences and Intensive Programmes
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Scientific publications in the ECyS Journal ECOCYCLES
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Landscape management software for local and regional development and planning
SUMCULA Ecocycles Articles
The following papers were generated by Gaia Education during the project:
Community-led approaches and interventions for the regeneration of abandoned towns in southern Italy
May East, Ecocycles Journal, 2(1), 18–25. | Read it here
Current thinking on sustainable human habitat: the Findhorn Ecovillage case
May East, Ecocycles Journal, 4(1), 68–72. | Read it here
Community-based solutions to locally-sourced food production systems featuring the revival of indigenous knowledge
May East, Christopher Mare, Ecocycles Journal, 4(1), 32–40. | Read it here
Regenerative strategies for climate justice
May East, Ecocycles Journal, 4(1), 41–46. | Read it here
Rising cities: continuity, innovation and deliberation of Vauban District, Freiburg, Germany
May East, Ecocycles Journal, 4(2), 58–71. | Read it here
Mapping the ‘Presency’ of Women in Cities
May East, Ecocycles Journal, 5(2), 1–5. | Read it here
Design for sustainable cultural landscapes - A whole-systems framework
May East, Ki Utara Pinheiro-Gibsone, Bernard Combes, Ecocycles Journal, 7(1), 1-13. | Read it here
Project Partners
Members of the partnership cover a wide range of competences:
University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Coordinating institution: built cultural heritage, industrial landscapes, floating heritage, climate change, geomorphology, bio-diversity, remote sensing and GIS
University of Pécs, Hungary
Cultural heritage studies, regional development, strategic planning, adult education, floating heritage of rivers and lakes, viticultural landscapes, economy of regional planning, environmental law
University of Pannonia, Veszprém, Hungary
Regional development of disadvantaged regions, sustainable agriculture, agro-economy, bio-energy production, tourism, viticulture, remote sensing and GIS
Lake Balaton Development Coordination Agency (LBDCA), Siófok, Hungary
Regional infrastructure planning, management of nature reserves and national parks, lake-management (shallow lakes), cultural heritage of rural areas
European Ecocycles Society (ECyS)
Sustainable ecological cycles, environmental management, international networking and publishing in the journal ECOCYCLES
University of Palermo (UNIPA), Palermo, Italy
General soil science and soil conservation, water resources management in arid environments, environmental protection, waste management, viticulture and conservation of viticultural landscapes, remote sensing and GIS
Ecole des Métiers de l’Environnement (EME), Bruz, France
Environmental technologies, environmental chemistry, remediation of polluted landscapes, renewable energy technologies, flu gas cleaning, biogas production, waste management
Mendel University (MENDELU), Brno, Czech Republic
Forestry, forest ecosystems, conservation of forest landscapes, landscape dynamics, environmental protection, environmental health and epidemiology
Gaia Education, Findhorn, Scotland, UK
Whole-systems design of ecological settlements, waste management and implementation of zero waste policies, environmental sociology, regenerative economies, adult education for sustainable development, lifelong learning
Slovak Agricultural University (SPU), Nitra, Slovakia
Agriculture, food safety, bio-energy, environmental law, regional development
University College of Tourism and Ecology (WSTiE), Sucha Beskidzka, Poland
Sustainable tourism, tourism-informatics, eco-tourism
Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain
Viticulture and enology, environmental science, cultural heritage
University of Applied Sciences (HTW), Dresden, Germany
Environmental science, urban agriculture, landscape architecture

Articles and News
Sustainable Management of Cultural Landscapes Online Conference Invitation
The strategic partnership on Sustainable Management of Cultural Landscapes includes 13 partners from 10 countries. The project has a number of outputs as a result of productive cooperation of higher education institutions in the field of cultural landscapes and heritage studies. Gaia Education is an active member of this consortium.
Cultural landscapes can be understood in many perspectives such as the agricultural landscape, the industrial landscape, the urban cityscape, the coastal mariti…
Award-winning Courage Chocolate with special editions for Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day is coming up soon and award-winning Courage Chocolate has developed and worked on this year’s special editions of handmade chocolate with herbs ready for your loved ones.
In 2019 Courage Chocolate was awarded the TuttoFood Milano Prize in 2019 and the specially made chocolates were sold out during LUSH Manchester Festival, attracting great interest from the engaged LUSH public, eager to know where to source more.
Courage Chocolate and Sicilian social cooperative partner…