An outstanding olive landscape

Does the landscape that surrounds us define our culture? My answer would be a definite yes. The natural environment dictates what we eat, what we produce, what we create, and even how we think. Having a background of architecture and conservation practices, I get excited to see that heritage sites are now being evaluated as cultural landscapes; in certain cases, having an agricultural landscape is an integral part of heritage. In most cases, agriculture is an inseparable part of our heritage; as its name readily includes, it is a part of our culture and the basis of our existence in nature. 

Recently, three more sites in Turkey were included on UNESCO's tentative list of World Heritage. Two are in northwestern Turkey; the archaeological site of Assos in Çanakkale province, and the town of Ayvalık as an industrial landscape. The other is İvriz in central Turkey, in Konya province, in the category of cultural landscape. The criterion to be included on the World Heritage List is clear; the sites must be of outstanding universal value and meet at least one of 10 selection criteria, the first of which is to represent a "masterpiece of human creative genius." In recent years, UNESCO has started to emphasize the concept of cultural landscape; sites that are nominated try to display their multifarious assets. A cultural landscape is defined as "a geographic area, including both cultural and natural resources and the wildlife or domestic animals therein, associated with a historic event, activity, or person or exhibiting other cultural or aesthetic values."

Sites where overlapping natural and manmade cultural assets are present are becoming more accepted on the World Heritage List. All recent three Turkish sites in the tentative list are unique sites that...