At the 2018 meeting of the Permanent European Conference for the Study of the Rural Landscape (PECSRL), that took place in Clermont-Ferrand and Mende in France, the Institute for Research on European Agricultural Landscapes e.V. (EUCALAND) Network organized a session on traditional landscapes. Presentations included in the session discussed the concept of traditional, mostly agricultural, landscapes, their ambiguous nature and connections to contemporary landscape research and practice.

Endemic species on mountains often have narrow altitudinal ranges and are more threatened at the higher altitudes, especially with climate changes. However, plants could use special microhabitats at the mountain tops as proper places for surviving the climate change (i.e., refugia). We assessed population attributes of three critically endangered endemic species (Primula boveana Decne ex Duby, Rosa arabica Crep., and Silene leucophylla Boiss.) in two growing seasons (2006/2007 and 2013/2014), differing in the received rainfalls in microhabitats at the high mountains of southern Sinai.

Civil war and violence often force large numbers of people to leave their lands. Multiple waves of displacement and (partial) return generate complex overlapping claims that are not easily solved. As people return to their regions of origin—sometimes after decades—they tend to find their land occupied by other settlers, some of whom hold legal entitlements. In the places of arrival, displaced people affect other people’s access as they seek to turn their temporary entitlements into more definite claims.