Europe’s upland landscapes are a rich and complex heritage, born of the interaction of nature and culture over millennia. Local communities can play an active and essential role in conserving and protecting this heritage, benefitting wider society. However, current conservation measures and land use decisions consistently fail to consider the historic dimension of upland landscapes and underestimate the contribution of local practitioners in sustaining their environment through active use.
IRIS is a response to these circumstances, and to the threats to upland landscapes from depopulation, abandonment, the loss of traditional skills and land use change driven by the climate emergency and economic trends.
The IRIS closing conference (program draft attached) will consist of three days:
- a first day dedicated to the general presentation of results of the IRIS project where we propose you to intervene at the beginning of the day to give a bit the program frame in which we realized our works,
- a second dedicated to stakeholders and public officers related to the Montenegrin study site facilitating knowledge transfer and exchange where we propose you to intervene at the beginning of the day with a shorter presentation directed to the stakeholders and public officers that will be present,
- third day that will be devoted to a field visit to the Sinjajevina highlands and meetings with representatives of the local communities’ heritage holders.
There is an online exhibition about the project going on as well. For more information on the conference, please visit the website of IRIS.