The Evidence of Links between Landscape and Economy in a Rural Park

This paper verifies the existence of relationships between specific features of the agrarian landscape of ancient olive trees in the park territory of six municipalities in the Region of Puglia, Italy, and the economic activity of the areas concerned. This has the scope of exploring developmental opportunities, whether already put into place, or potentially active. It develops and verifies theoretical approaches and empirical experiences which propose processes of territorial exploitation and local development as pathways for the identification and utilization of both the differences and distinctive characteristics of the territory itself, toward the creation of a “value added territory” as the basis for development. Agriculture tends to be presented in terms of the “care and culture” of the territory: not only the appropriate production of primary goods, ecological and locally characterized but also the contextualized production of land and environment. In this paper, the authors use the concept of the park from the perspective of innovation: no longer referring to the concept of environmental protection and preservation as a defensive action, but creating a synthesis between the productive enhancement of open spaces alongside the upgrading of environmental systems, the built environment and environmental, and cultural development.