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The UNESCO World Heritage listing
On 28 June 2011, at its 35th session, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee declared the Causses and Cévennes, a cultural landscape shaped by Mediterranean pastoral farming, to be of outstanding universal value and included them on its World Heritage List.
Public recognition for Mediterranean pastoral farming
The Causses and Cévennes offer very diverse landscapes, which have been connected and fashioned by pastoral (livestock) farming over three millennia. Substantial interaction between mankind and the natural environment is deemed to constitute a cultural landscape.
Recognising pastoral farming
These cultural landscapes are representative of Mediterranean pastoral farming. Virtually every type of pastoral organisation encountered in the countries surrounding the Mediterranean – pastoral farming, agro-forestry, transhumance (Seasonal migration of livestock between mountain and valley pastures), and sedentary pastoral farming – is present here. In that sense, the landscapes have a universal value.
A heritage shaped by pastoral farming
Pastoral farming has thus left its mark. In this extensive farming system, herds grazed over large areas and were moved according to the availability of food. Where pastureland or transhumance//parcours were somewhat far from the farm, isolated sheepfolds or pens were built, as on the Causse Méjean or Mont Lozère.
An asset for tourism
On 28 June 2011, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee included the territory of the Causses and Cévennes on its prestigious World Heritage list in the category “continuing, organically evolved cultural landscapes” because of its Mediterranean pastoral farming.
