How Do We Accommodate New Land Uses in Traditional Landscapes? Remanence of Landscapes, Resilience of Areas, Resistance of People

Faced with the challenge of major changes, it is becoming urgent to consider what makes the specificity and strength of European landscapes, in particular landscapes still fashioned by traditional farming. The central question in this paper—how to accommodate new land uses in traditional landscapes—cannot be approached without reference to some other topical issues that could be identified as driving forces: the development of renewable energies, the spreading of green networks, the maintenance (or return) of sustainable agriculture. The paper's analysis, with examples from Brittany, opens up a certain number of principles which can serve as a guideline in territorial development: acceptable scale of development, adjustment to land resources, and maintenance of multi-functionality, maximum threshold of specialization. This is necessary if we are to better understand, and then implement: an acceptable scale of development, adjustment to land resources, maintenance of multi-functionality. The landscape expertise might then be useful not only for landscape protection and planning, but also to consider broad lines of future development adapted to the ‘sense of place’, thus improving economic, ecological and social values. At a theoretical level, this analysis proposes an approach to territorial dynamics via the interaction of three concepts: resilience of territory, remanence of landscapes and resistance of people.