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THE STOCKHOLM SEMINARS:FRONTIERS IN SUSTAINABILITY SCIENCE AND POLICY

We have the great pleasure to invite you to the seminar: “Patrimony and Consumption: Rethinking the Relationships between Rural Areas and Cities”

Dr. Ismael VaccaroDepartment of Anthropology and McGill School of Environment
McGill University, Montreal, Canada

Tuesday, March 3, 2009, 14.00–15.00Linné Hall, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences,
Lilla Frescativägen 4, Stockholm Download the seminar announcement as a pdf-file at:http://www.albaeco.se/en/images/stories/File/vaccaro0303-09.pdf

Please, post or circulate the announcement among your colleagues or put it on the note board. The seminars are open for all interested and free of charge. No registration needed. Very welcome!

ABSTRACT:During the last fifty years the rural areas of the Western world have experienced an intense process of depopulation and economic collapse. This situation has had important consequences on the landscape ecology of mountains and valleys at the periphery of our societies. In this talk, using a case study from the Spanish Pyrenees, we delve into the historical reasons that precipitated the rural collapse and we explore the emergence of new social and economic opportunities related to the consolidation of leisure as a key economic sector of Western societies. This new emphasis on leisure, materialized by, for instance, ski resorts, golf courts or protected areas, is resulting in two models of tourism: mass tourism and ecotourism. The impacts of these two models on social and ecological sustainability are quite different. Finally, I argue, the situation of the Western rural areas encapsulates important lessons on landscape management that can be exported to other locales across the globe.