Putting the Heritage Value of Agricultural Landscapes to Work for a Sustainable Future

The heritage value of agricultural landscapes is an area of cultural landscape practice receiving renewed attention worldwide due to the current surge of interest in place-making, heritage tourism, food security, sustainable agriculture, and large-scale landscape conservation. Compared to many other countries, agricultural landscapes in the U.S. remain underrepresented in heritage recognition programs and are not widely embraced as a heritage conservation priority. In this context, international conservation practice offers ideas for integrating heritage values into strategies for environmental, economic, and social sustainability. This review of U.S. and international initiatives demonstrates that the time is right for new strategies recognizing the full value of agricultural landscapes. To advance conservation of designated agricultural landscapes and their rural contexts in the U.S., this paper recommends that the National Park Service (NPS), in collaboration with a diverse array of partners, create a “Rural Heritage Agenda.” This ambitious undertaking will more consistently link recognition of heritage values with community-led efforts for conservation of U.S. agricultural landscapes.