**1. Introduction**

To achieve sustainable environmental planning, the whole environment must be considered, but previous research shows that historical and cultural perspectives on the landscape are often ignored [1–9] (The historic dimensions, "the surviving physical impacts of people on the landscape" and the cultural dimensions, "the intangible meanings, values, attributes and associations that people attach to its physical components" of landscapes [10] are integrated parts of the highly dynamic concept of heritage [11,12].

Guided by international charters and conventions, heritage conservation principles have moved from a focus on preserving historic monuments and sites towards a more integrative and people-centred focus on using the past in the present [13] and to manage change sustainably. This future-oriented approach includes not only the care for landscape materiality and characteristics but also local knowledge and history, stories and myths, crafts, minority and local identity, and collective memory [7,14–17]. The application of contemporary heritage conservation principles in local and regional planning is today a well-established practice in many parts of the world [17–21] with a vast variety of professional profiles, approaches and agendas.

**Citation:** Eliasson, I.; Fredholm, S.; Knez, I.; Gustavsson, E. The Need to Articulate Historic and Cultural Dimensions of Landscapes in Sustainable Environmental Planning—A Swedish Case Study. *Land* **2022**, *11*, 1915. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/land11111915

Academic Editors: Lucia Della Spina, Paola Pellegrini, Antonia Russo, Maria Rosa Valluzzi and Angela Viglianisi

Received: 3 October 2022 Accepted: 26 October 2022 Published: 27 October 2022

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**Copyright:** © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

With the adaptation to the principles of sustainable development [22] heritage has become more relevant in an environmental planning context. In 2005, the Council of Europe (COE) adopted the Faro Convention, emphasizing the role of heritage as a resource for sustainable development in society [23]. In 2017, the COE adopted the European Cultural Heritage Strategy for the 21st century, stressing that heritage cannot be viewed in isolation from its physical and cultural context, and that developing a high-quality living environment means considering heritage in other sectoral policies, such as development, environmental conservation and land use planning [24]. Sustainable heritage is today a developing field guided by the urgent need to address social-cultural and environmental issues together [9]. However, as argued by [25] the conservation and sustainability fields has not yet recognized nor elaborated "the full implications of considering the heritage dimension and value of nature in unison".

Integrative instruments for environmental planning are requested by both scientists and practitioners. One such instrument is the Ecosystem Service (ES) framework developed to assist environmental decision-making. ES aims to bridge natural and social sciences and facilitate collaborative management in a shared framework for assessing values in the landscape [6,26–30]. In the ES framework, the notion of landscape and its historic and cultural dimensions is central to debates on loss of biodiversity, and mostly relevant in relation to cultural ecosystem services (CES). Six categories of CES have been defined [26] including: cultural identity (the current cultural linkage between humans and their environment); heritage values ("memories" in the landscape from past cultural ties); spiritual services (sacred, religious, or other forms of spiritual inspiration derived from ecosystems); inspiration (the use of natural motives or artefacts in arts, folklore, and so on); aesthetic appreciation of natural and cultivated landscapes; and recreation and tourism. While the MA classification of ES has been developed and refined [28,30,31] heritage remains a relevant concept, as the ES approach integrates historic and cultural perspectives on landscapes and biocultural heritage into decision-making processes. However, there is a shortage of studies focusing on cultural heritage and identity and only a handful of existing ES publications gives a more comprehensive description of "newer notions of heritage" in relation to landscape [32] Another shortcoming is the focus on immaterial aspects through heritage values, which excludes the material aspects of human relations with the environment [25].

In the recent decade, due to a directive by the European Commission the EU member states have started to implement the ES approach in practice. However, the intangibility of CES, evaluation difficulties, methodological and conceptual issues as well as the fundamentally instrumental framing of the ES framework are reported to restrict the integration of CES in environmental planning and policies [6,25,32–39]. A closer collaboration and exchange of knowledge between heritage planning and the ES approach can be of mutual benefit as the methodological framework of ES, where the cultural benefits of nature are explored as resources for society, is in line with current approaches to heritage planning [16,21,32,40–42]. Taking advantage of established discourses, approaches and practices in heritage planning could possibly improve the understanding of CES beyond the current focus on recreation. Heritage planning would also benefit from such a connection as the ES approach provides a methodological framework to bridge the gap between heritage and sustainable development and to recognize cultural landscapes and natural features with cultural significance (natural heritage) in environmental planning [21,26,32,40–42].

As shown above, the historic and cultural perspectives on landscape often have little significance in sustainable environmental planning. This also applies to the implementation of ES, despite the framework having been developed with the purpose to bridge natural and social science, and facilitate collaborative management and communication across sectors. Ignoring the historic and cultural dimensions of landscapes makes environmental planning unsustainable, which in the long run will have a negative impact on both the environment and society. In theory, a closer collaboration between the fields of heritage planning and the ES can be of mutual benefit as suggested by previous studies. However, few studies

have examined how practitioners understand and approach the role of historic and cultural landscape dimensions for sustainable development in environmental planning. In order to fill this gap, the aim of the present study was to examine the work and perceptions of practitioners with a focus on discussing how historic and cultural landscape dimensions are understood and articulated and what opportunities exist for intersectoral exchange of knowledge, in light of the recent implementation of the ES approach. For this purpose, we used data from a case study of sustainable environmental planning at local and regional public agencies in Sweden. The study was guided by the following research questions:


#### **2. Materials and Methods**

This paper is part of an interdisciplinary research project with the aim to investigate the role of cultural heritage and the historic environment in sustainable landscape management [43,44]. The present paper draws upon data collected from interviews. A qualitative, single case study approach [45–48] was used to gain a deeper understanding of the issues at hand. The interdisciplinary project team included researchers with expertise in the field of physical geography, conservation of the built environment, psychology and biocultural heritage.

#### *2.1. The Case Study Area*

The case study area, the Lake Vänern Archipelago Biosphere Reserve, includes the municipalities of Mariestad, Götene and Lidköping with a total population of 80,000 inhabitants (Figure 1). The geographical area includes parts of Lake Vänern, the largest lake within the European Union, and an arable landscape with a varied topography consisting of post-glacial clay plains, mylonite intrusions, glacial moraine deposits and a Cambro-Silurian flat-topped mountain named Kinnekulle. People have lived in the area for at least 6000 years, and a richness in landmarks and artefacts dating back to the Bronze Age imply millennia of cultivation and influence on the landscape which is still visible in the diversity of plant species [49]. Biosphere reserves are intended as model areas for sustainable development and, in order to be designated by UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB), the landscape must include both a rich cultural heritage and high levels of biodiversity [50]. The global strategy for MAB aims to guide the local regional and national implementation of Agenda 2030 by integrated planning and landscape management [51].

The Swedish Environmental Code together with the Planning and Building Act form the legal basis for environmental planning, including heritage planning, in Sweden. The aim of the Environmental Code [52] is to promote sustainable development, which will assure a healthy and sound environment for present and future generations. "The environment" is used in broad terms and includes the cultural environment. Thus, the regulatory framework makes no clear distinction between natural and cultural values of landscapes, and the Environmental Code shall be applied in such a way as to ensure that valuable natural and cultural environments are protected and preserved in combination. Furthermore, the cultural environment serves as an important aspect in sustainability policy. For example, the Swedish National Heritage Board, under the Ministry of Culture, is in charge of the 2030 Vision for cultural heritage management in Sweden. An important goal of the vision is to increase awareness that cultural heritage and the cultural environment are important parts of the work for a sustainable inclusive society [53]. Additionally, the current Swedish environmental policy includes a "generational goal," which is intended to guide environmental action at every level of society by means of 16 environmental

quality objectives and a number of milestone targets. One important target, decided by the Swedish parliament, is that a majority of the municipalities, by 2025, shall integrate ecosystem services in planning, building and management of the urban built environment. To accomplish this target and the environmental policy in practice the municipalities use the detailed development plans which are legally binding and the most important instrument. The municipalities have the main responsibility for environmental planning in Sweden in dialogue with the regional planning level, i.e., the County Administrative Boards. Implementation of the ES framework has gradually increased at the regional and local planning levels in Sweden during the past 10 years, as a consequence of governmental decisions and development of national policies. Previous studies report a limited awareness of the concept of ES and a slow integration at local and regional planning levels [21,38,54] but, during recent years, the integration has increased as shown by [55]. Still, several barriers exist, such as the use of different definitions, approaches and methods as well as a lack of bridging perspectives and traditional division between nature and culture [21,38,56,57]. A recent study [55] report a "heterogeneity in the degree, focus and strategy" among the municipalities and a "gap between visions, strategic goals and their implementation" from a review of 231 Swedish municipal comprehensive plans.

**Figure 1.** Lake Vänern Archipelago Biosphere Reserve in Sweden includes the three municipalities, Mariestad, Götene and Lidköping. Source: Lantmäteriet state of dispersal Dnr 601-2008-855.

#### *2.2. Interviews*

In total, eighteen semi-structured interviews were conducted between 2018 and 2019 with officials employed or otherwise engaged by local and regional actors, including municipalities, the County Administrative Board, local museums, and the Biosphere Association. The respondents each had formal responsibilities related to the planning and management

of historic and cultural landscape dimensions but represented a range of different occupations and disciplines, such as historians, built heritage conservation, urban and landscape planning, environment conservation, engineering, and architecture. Respondents were identified through discussions in the project group and via webpages. The respondents were approached by telephone or e-mail, and they were able to choose the location for a face-to-face interview which lasted one hour on average and was recorded and transcribed. The themes and questions analyzed in the present paper are shown in Table 1.

Each interview started with a discussion about the research project and the respondents were then asked to specify their educational and professional backgrounds, as well as current work assignments. Note that no definitions of concepts related to historic and cultural landscape dimensions were given in advance, thus the respondents' answers are based on their own interpretations. Each respondent's answers were analyzed via transcripts and audio recordings. The responses were compiled in a spreadsheet and were thematically categorized based on their semantic content. Data from the semi-structured interviews are reported using "bottom up" (based on open questions) and "top down" analyses, where "the analytic process involves a progression from description, where the data have simply been organized to show patterns in semantic content, and summarized, to interpretation, where there is an attempt to theorize the significance of the patterns and their broader meanings and implications often in relation to previous literature" [46]. These analyses were done with an emphasis on listening, meaning that the interviewer actively avoided influencing and biasing the conversation [58]. In order to thoroughly understand the data, the transcripts were read several times and when needed the original audio recordings were reviewed [46].

The questions used in the semi-structured interviews were divided into 5 themes (Table 1). In two of the themes, questions appeared both in open-ended and closed-ended formats (see Table 1). The interviewer began with the open-ended question, asking the respondents to develop and discuss their answers. Next, the respondents were asked to mark multiple choices on an A4 sheet for each question. The closed-ended part of the questions also included an opportunity for the respondents to add aspects that they thought were important. When the respondent had answered the questions, the interviewer and the respondent discussed the answers and the question. Data analysis for these two themes included data both based on the answers from the audio recording and transcripts, and from the A4 sheets. The data from the A4 sheets were transferred to an Excel sheet. Percentages of total number of respondents who considered each of the aspects presented on the A4 sheets were calculated and results plotted on a spreadsheet chart. These results were again compared and sometimes complemented with authentic citations and data from the audio recording and transcripts. For the remaining three themes only open-ended questions were used (see Table 1). Each respondent's answers were analysed via transcripts and audio recordings. The responses were compiled in an Excel sheet and were thematically categorized based on their semantic content.


**Table 1.** Interview instrument—themes and questions that guided the study.


#### **Table 1.** *Cont.*

#### **3. Results**

Results are presented in line with the aim and research questions presented above.

#### *3.1. Historic and Cultural Landscape Dimensions Are Important*

One strong potential identified was that historic and cultural landscape dimensions are, according to a majority of the public officials, important in the early stages of the planning process and considered on a daily basis. The results from the interviews show that the officials have a long tradition of considering man's use of nature and of using the perspective that nature and culture is both integrated and interdependent in the landscape. One example is an EU fund LIFE-nature project entitled, "Kinnekulle Plateau Mountain restoration and conservation" which was in progress between 2002–2007 with a budget of Euro 5.7 million. Even though this project was labelled as a "nature" restoration and conservation project the historic landscape was the base for the project. In the words of one of the respondents:

"The job was to restore and recreate old overgrown pastures and meadows and to win back the old cultural landscape. We included quite a lot of land in this project, often not based on the natural values, instead based on, for example, old boundaries, village boundaries between grazing and outfield. The project was based on a combination of cultural history and natural values".

However, results also show several challenges to ensure consideration of historic and cultural landscape dimensions in later phases of the planning and decision process. These challenges were related to conceptual ambiguities, unclear policy and assignments, limited cross-sectorial coordination, lack of awareness, knowledge, resources and other priorities as described below.

#### *3.2. Conceptual Ambiguities*

The interviews revealed that public officials talk about and define historic and cultural landscape dimensions in various ways. There are conceptual ambiguities with a wide range of definitions. Some officials talk about designated buildings and areas of national interest, i.e., the material heritage that is strongly linked to the legal framework. Others talk about historic and cultural landscape dimensions in more general terms synonymous with a changing landscape, or as one official put it:

"A process—it changes because historic and cultural dimensions are the impact of humans on the environment, the landscape and the buildings . . . ".

Some other respondents argue that the concept is a sensitive topic that tends to be perceived as fluctuant opinions, based on attitudes, rather than professional judgments. In order to increase the influence of historic and cultural landscape dimensions in current practices they describe how they have to find innovative ways, as for example showing its instrumental value for the tourism industry.
