Towards biocultural realism: Connecting conservation with historical ecology and common sense. A European perspective.

In this perspective, we present and discuss four major causes of the worldwide nature conservation failure: 1) ideologies based on nature-culture dualism, 2) the bias prioritising forests in conservation, 3) the illusory objectiveness of selected biological indicators, and 4) the mismanagement of rural agricultural landscapes. All of these relate to ignorance of historical ecology and neglect of the role past plays in shaping landscapes and fostering biodiversity. These led to a false anthropology focussed on the broader human economy (including agriculture) as the absolute culprit of biodiversity loss.

Covid-19 and rural landscape: The case of Italy.

Throughout the covid-19 emergency, health authorities have presented contagion data divided by administrative regions with no reference to the type of landscape, environment or development model. This study has been conducted to understand whether there is a correlation between the number of infections and the different rural landscapes of the country. Italy's rural landscape can be classified in four types, according to the intensity of energy inputs used in the agricultural process, socioeconomic and environmental features.