The dossier presented to UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee fulfilled two of the ten selection criteria.
Criterion 3: “To bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared.”
The Causses and Cévennes do indeed represent an exceptional example of a certain kind of Mediterranean pastoral farming. This cultural tradition, based on distinctive social structures and local breeds of sheep, is reflected in the way the landscape is structured, particularly in the patterns of farms, settlements, fields, water management, drailles (drovers’ roads, or paths for livestock migrating to and from summer pastures) and grazing rights on common land. The tradition also resides in what the structured landscape reveals about the evolution of all these elements, especially since the 12th century.
This same agricultural tradition still survives and has been revitalised over the past few decades.
Criterion 5: “To be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture (or cultures), or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change.”
The Causses and Cévennes can be considered a prime example of Mediterranean pastoral farming. More specifically, they represent a response to the environment that is typical throughout south-western Europe. A variety of landscape zones illustrate the outstanding way in which the system has evolved over time, particularly over the past millennium.
Go on the web site of AVECC (Association of Valuation of the Spaces of Causses and Cevennes)
