United Nation Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the European Green Deal and the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) are legislative proposals counting on rural and agricultural landscapes to assist climate change mitigation, ecosystem services and preservation of heritage. Agricultural landscapes take up more than 10% of the earth’s land surface (1.5 billion ha), presenting a continuous field of interaction between man and nature, shaping the earth’s epidermis since antiquity. The Mediterranean basin is one of the most evident places on earth exhibiting this relationship, between the anthropogenic and the natural, hosting lands of enormous ecological, economic and cultural value. With Greece’s economy being based largely on agriculture in the past, traditional Greek agricultural landscapes present great socio-cultural importance; those landscapes, managed appropriately, could dynamically help combat climate issues, continue to provide services of high value and also present local character, tradition and culture. Yet, the acknowledgement of agricultural heritage, the creation of mixed productive socio-ecological profiles and the realization of governance schemes towards agricultural connections, such as linking traditional agricultural practices to the wider anthropogenic, ecological and recreational services, are in their infancy for many countries worldwide, including Greece. Landscape heritage is considered as important as archaeological and architectural heritage. In this paper, three examples of high importance Agricultural Heritage Landscapes (AHLs) are presented: the masticulture in Chios island; the black (Corinthian) raisin vineyards in Aigialeia (Egialia), Peloponnese; and the olive groves of Thassos island. Their importance is analyzed and strategic steps towards their acknowledgement, conservation and appropriate management are presented.

The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) Florence Charter 1981 on Historic Gardens sets the first guidelines for the definition of a historic garden, in which sites such as large parks, whether formal or landscape, are included. Since then, there is a continuous effort worldwide on issues of historic garden acknowledgement, conservation, restoration and management. Countries with garden and park tradition, such as the U.K., USA, France and others, have several sites registered and protected. Furthermore, historic garden and park associations exist in Italy, Spain and Portugal, among other nations. In Greece, there is no specific official policy or association regarding historic parks, gardens or landscapes. Greek law includes historic gardens and parks within the spectrum of works of art, places of outstanding natural beauty and historic places/lands for partial or absolute protection, and, thus, attempts in identifying historic landscapes fall generally in other categories, but law specified for historic gardens. However, in both the Greek ratification of the European Landscape Convention and the European Biodiversity directives, there are aspects one could interpret as very useful for the acknowledgement and policy-making on historic gardens and parks. In this paper, an overview on historic gardens and parks abroad and in Greece is attempted, along with aspects of acknowledgement, protection, conservation, restoration and management. Finally, a first attempt on methodological outlines for the acknowledgement and conservation of historic gardens and parks in Greece is presented.

Grey, blue and green infrastructure supports socio-ecological processes the city undergoes. Yet, procedures of constructing anthropogenic habitats often undermine the value of natural landscape elements such as urban streams. Thessaloniki’s backbone comprises of urban streams that run from the suburban forest of ‘Seih-Sou’ to the Thermaikos Gulf acting as corridors of the natural urban matrix. Policies of the past have dealt with urban streams through extensive engineering drainage methods, eliminating the risk of flooding, yet resulting in rapid stormwater runoff, water quality problems, disturbed riparian ecosystems, leading to the urban stream syndrome. Furthermore, they have failed to address urban streams as an inseparable part of the landscape and thus to incorporate them in people’s mental map and everyday activities. The paper discusses the case of ‘Polygnotou stream’ which forms the beginning of the large scale engineered peripheral moat of Thessaloniki, constructed in the 60’s, and playing the role of the water recipient for six urban streams in total. It falls unknown to the majority of people living in the area, yet its services as an ecosystem ought to be acknowledged, helping inform decision makers of its socio-ecologic, perceptual and economic value. In addition, Polygnotou stream, adjacent streams and the peripheral moat overall, could be considered as a touristic product of great importance.

Our world is changing fast, and rural exodus remains an issue. People are losing connection with nature, and, as a result, farming knowledge in the sense of the entity between soil–ecology–economy and production is fading. But also, the connection between farmers, ecology, and the land has been lost—with many societal consequences. The cultural part of agriculture is vanishing, while some city dwellers and nations still uphold their romantic ideas about rural life. The European Union has many programs and subsidies to support people in living in the countryside, but they seem insufficient to solve the problem. This brings us to the situation where defining agricultural landscapes is becoming valuable. EUCALAND, a non-profit association (European Culture Expressed in Agriculture) elaborated a questionnaire to define agricultural landscape types. These questionnaires were filled by national experts of the EUCALAND Networks from the following countries: Croatia, Czech Republic, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and the UK. The number of questionnaires analysed is based on the number of national expert members who declared that the analysed agricultural landscape is present and worth evaluation in the given country. The number of countries involved is changing accordingly. The minimum number of countries involved in the analyses is five (in the case of fishponds); the maximum was eleven (in the case of traditional orchards). So far, 10 landscape types have been evaluated by the EUCALAND Network: terraced landscape, enclosed landscape, arable landscape, dispersed settlements, fire landscape, meadows, water meadows, pastures, orchards, fishpond landscape. All landscape types except dispersed landscapes were included in this article, as the evaluation of dispersed settlements is not finished yet. During the work, the issue of overlap between the categories arose. In this paper, the authors provide a draft list of overlapping agricultural landscapes, along with a list of the reasons and physical/geographical places of these overlaps. Furthermore, the authors discuss the possible evaluation and management issues, and their effects on protecting our valuable agricultural landscapes.