About LandscapePartners

Austria
© Gunter Prager

People are an important part of cultural landscapes which qualifies these landscapes as social-ecological systems. Our present landscapes are a result of human activity in the past, and such activities continue to impact on landscapes today.

There is ongoing political and scientific debate about how to achieve sustainable management of natural resources that will benefit rural communities’ economic development while protecting and enhancing natural assets. Multi-stakeholder groups are an important link between policies and on-ground management. There is limited knowledge on the groups’ contribution to sustainable development and only scattered information on how efficiently the activities of these groups can be influenced by means of EU and government funding (Rural Development Programme, Agri-environment schemes, LEADER, habitat management programmes).