Deriving EcoTargets from Ecological Orientors: How to Realize Ecological Targets at the Landscape Scale

To envisage the cultural landscape of tomorrow different scenarios can be perceived. The development of landscape depends predominantly on socioeconomic demands and technical possibilities — counterbalanced by measures of nature conservation and environmental protection. However, the economic prerequisites and political structures determine the realization of landscape development far more than the results of ecosystem research. The integration of diverging sectoral planning results — deriving data from basic research — may lead to ideas of cultural landscape that considerably limit the degree of freedom for land-use utilization. This applies in particular to the conservation of species, since in this field the definition of standards is hardly possible. In this situation, it is useful to describe the sensitivity of landscape compartments as a measure to assess impact factors on protective goods due to land-use systems. The ‘sensitivity’-approach may facilitate a cautious embedding of land-use systems without neglecting the protection and development of abiotic and biotic landscape potentials.