Speaker
Description
Mediterranean wetlands are extraordinary and complex ecosystems that perform a multitude of functions and provide numerous ecosystem benefits and services, as well as being important carbon sinks. At the same time, they are man-made spaces that promote recreation and leisure, regulate flooding and erosion, purify water and provide valuable water and food resources for local human and non-human food systems. However, these territories are under severe pressure due to high population density, continuous population growth and a severe increase in tourist influx. They are also territories affected by a drastic reduction in the availability of fresh water due to climate change, which is much more intense in these areas than the world average.
It is therefore necessary and increasingly urgent to accompany these territories in a transition towards more sustainable and resilient models of habitats, economies and local food systems that put the ecological value of these precious areas of the planet back at the centre.
In this context, the contribution advances a reflection on four Mediterranean wetlands: the Ria Formosa in Portugal, the Guadalquivir Marismas in Seville, the Camargue and the Venice Lagoon. These four food production landscapes are explored through a transdisciplinary perspective between landscape and art. In these four territories, a series of artistic-culinary projects that are redefining, from a socio-cultural point of view, the relationship between gastronomy, landscape and sustainability are investigated.
This article first analyses the tools and strategies adopted by these projects to promote the transition to more sustainable local food systems and redevelop productive landscapes. Indeed, these four projects have developed heterogeneous initiatives that integrate artistic actions, landscape design and culinary practices to strengthen local economies and rediscover the culinary identity of their regions. At the same time, these initiatives function as devices for territorial mediation and political and cultural awakening in territories affected by processes of overtourism, commodification and land grabbing that are severely undermining local ecosystems. These cultural practices represent light and flexible infrastructures that operate as catalysts for new relationships and synergies by creating unprecedented connections between producers, inhabitants-eaters and the landscape itself through sensorial and educational experiences.
Finally, the article analyses the challenges and opportunities offered by these projects from an economic and ecological perspective, as well as their social acceptance (empathy) and potential replicability in other wetlands in Europe.
| Keywords | Wetlands, Local food systems, Landscape, Gastronomy, Spatial mediation, Art |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
