The cultural landscape of Campina de Faro: solutions based on water heritage and cultural tourism

Abstract

The European INCULTUM project has at its core ten pilot cases with the aim of exploring the potential of peripheral and neglected territories when managed by local communities and stakeholders, within the framework of community-based cultural tourism. This article focuses on the Portuguese pilot, located in the Algarve region in southern Portugal, and describes the process of research and cooperation carried out in the first two years of the project to fulfil that goal. The cultural landscape of the Campina de Faro is characterized by the presence of vegetable gardens and orchards associated with a historical, evolving, and adaptable irrigation system, revealing a technological unit (hydraulic infrastructures) and a social unit (local community). For this irrigation system (in abandonment and disuse) to survive, its study and rehabilitation is essential, as well as the dissemination of its importance and added value for society and the environment. In both cases, the role of residents is crucial as they hold ancient knowledge and know-how and it is on them that the improved management of natural (water, soil) and cultural (food goods, heritage) resources depends. It is in the perspective of the importance of the farmers and local producers as the main actor and decision-maker in the planning, development, and management of resources to serve the objectives of both horticultural production and the enjoyment of the agrarian landscape, that the key role of the hydraulic heritage and the active participation of local communities as a basis for the development of sustainable tourism is recognised.