Sustainable landscapes: contradiction, fiction or utopia?

As landscapes change continuously in a more or less chaotic way, the concept of sustainable landscapes could be viewed as a utopian goal. New landscapes emerge with changing life-styles. Decision making for landscape planning, conservation and management use the concept of sustainability widely. To make it operational, many new associated and more specific concepts have been proposed such as natural and social capital, conservation economy and quality of life capital. Most of these are inspired by economic thinking and rarely refer directly to the landscape. This article reviews the background and meaning of these concepts and shows that landscape is not seen here as an integrating, holistic concept. As landscape changes, also its meaning and significance changes and consequently its management. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.