For the purposes of cooperation on landscape and cultural heritage, the Wadden Sea Area, and an area beyond, has been identified to include the main cultural entities. Activities on landscape and cultural heritage are carried out by, or in close cooperation with all relevant administrative levels and with support of the people living and working in the region.
The Wadden Sea Region is a unique example of a transgressive coastal landscape, created by the interaction of nature and humanity. It boasts a history that can be traced back more than three thousand years and its physical traits are very consistent: a flat, open landscape of broad horizons broken by thousands of dwelling mounds, thousands of kilometers of dykes (including many wheels or breach ponds), ditches and canals, sluices and locks and polder windmills; a landscape with characteristic field patterns that reflect former salt marsh gullies and colonisation and reclamation systems, as well as thousands of picturesque villages and harbour towns and often sumptuous historical farmhouses, all of which testify to the age-old innovative character of dairy and arable farming. An area where the conserved past in a unique way explains the present.
World Class Cultural Landscape
The Dutch Wadden Academy and the Common Wadden Sea Secretariat have published the brochure ”The Wadden Sea Region. A World Class Cultural Landscape”. The booklet is a summary of an analysis which was made earlier on how significant the cultural landscape of the Wadden Sea Region is compared to similar areas around the world. The conclusion of the analysis is that the landscape and cultural heritage is unparalleled world wide. The analysis is now made available to a broader audience through this attractive and abundantly illustrated booklet.
LancewadPlan
LancewadPlan Brochure
Download in English, German, Dutch
More information about Lancewad at http://www.lancewadplan.org/
In the course of two consecutive trans-boundary Interreg projects, the Lancewad and the LancewadPlan, the cultural and landscape treasures of the Dutch, German and Danish Wadden Sea Region have been mapped and analysed. A proposal for an overall strategy to protect, enhance and manage it has been developed, which is published in “An integrated strategy to preserve, maintain and develop the cultural landscape and heritage in the Wadden Sea Region”.
More information about Lancewad at http://www.lancewadplan.org/