Our story

The Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) are agroecosystems inhabited by communities that live in an intricate relationship with their territory. These evolving sites are resilient systems characterized by remarkable agrobiodiversity, traditional knowledge, invaluable cultures and landscapes, sustainably managed by farmers, herders, fisherfolk, and forest people in ways that contribute to their livelihoods and food security. Through the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has designated over 80 sites around the world.

The MED GIAHS Project is a transfer project coming from the VALSIPAM Project (Valuation of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems in the SUDOE Space) which created a network of GIAHS as unique and singular agricultural systems in the SUDOE space (South-West Europe) to improve their management and valuation methods in order to preserve them.

A total of 8 agricultural systems were involved, 5 of which had been declared GIAHS by FAO; the rest of them, are unique agricultural systems.

The project promoted an alternative tourism supply of unique experiences linked to biodiversity, landscape, agricultural and forestry practices and the cultural and anthropological heritage of the systems. VALSIPAM PROJECT designed, tested and validated a COMPREHENSIVE TOURISM VALUATION MODEL for agricultural systems aimed at protecting their rich heritage and promoting their socio-economic development.

The model was designed to promote an effective tourism management of the systems, and its main OBJECTIVES are:

  • To design an alternative supply of experience tourism.

  • To reduce the risk of extinction of these systems.

  • To ensure their sustainability and that of their populations.

The model is transferable to other GIAHS, with the aim of creating our LOCAL ACTION PLANS, as a part of the DYNAMIC CONSERVATION PLAN for GIAHS.

2 VALSIPAM partners decided to go on the MED GIAHS project together with other 3 new partners to implement this model and develop a common sustainable tourism strategy for GIAHS in the Mediterranean, a practical guide on how to draw up action plans in each territory, a training plan in GIAHS for local actors, as well as a catalogue with tourist experiences linked to the GIAHS experience.

To know more about GIAHS:https://www.fao.org/giahs/en/

To know more about the VALSIPAM project: https://valsipam.eu/