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J. L. Braga and M. Dionísio
authenticity and tranquillity. It is, therefore, a reinvention of the rural space as
a place of representation that follows a touristification or a patrimonialisation
process (Reis 2012).
During the 1960s and early 70s of the twentieth century, Portugal witnessed an
intense rural exodus towards urban centres (and emigration to Europe) that depleted
its agricultural labour force (Avillez 2015). In 1970, the urban population already
comprised 77% of the Portuguese population (Rosas and Mattoso 1993). This process
resulted in a concentration of about 2/3 of the Portuguese coastal population between
Braga and Aveiro and between Leiria and Setúbal (Silva, Lima and Chamusca 2010).
Thus, this phenomenon of accelerated urbanization led to the desertification of rural
areas in the interior of Portugal, due to the exodus of young people to the cities,
leaving the countryside to the elderly (Águas and Antunes 2017; Ribeiro and Marques
2002). Consequently, the Portuguese rural world has been going through a crisis that
has been manifesting itself in the steady decrease of agriculture’s weight in the
economy, the decrease in agricultural yield indices, the scarce capacity to attract
investments to other sectors, unattractive living and working conditions, and environmental problems related to pollution, rural exodus, erosion and forest disasters
(Cavaco 2004).
3 Multifunctionality and Rural Sustainability
In Europe, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been the main force responsible for current rural landscape planning, which has undergone numerous changes in
the last decades. Indeed, there has been an adoption of rural development strategies,
aimed at preventing socio-economic stagnation and environmental degradation. The
Mansholt plan, issued by the European Commission in 1968, constituted a key document for the restructuring of rural Europe; it sought to prevent Europe from depending
exclusively on the production of food supplies (Lane and Kastenholz 2015). The
restructuring of the European rural economy materialised itself in a change of the
use of space and in the allocation of the rural population to the performance of new
functions, such as the defence of landscape values or the upgrading of endogenous
resources (Tirado-Ballesteros and Hérnandez-Hérnandez 2018; Cánoves et al. 2004).
Therefore, the rural space is less a producing space and increasingly more a produced
space (Covas 2010). In Portugal, rural abandonment was intensified by the implementation of the CAP in the late 1980s of the twentieth century (Eusébio et al. 2017).
In fact, the CAP has proved to be inadequate for the Portuguese agricultural reality,
as it does not favour the sustainable development of rural areas (Alberto and Almeida
2011).
Concomitantly, since the 1970s, in some European countries such as France, there
has been a return of people from the city to the countryside, in a process that was called
neo-ruralism (Canditto 2010). This fact led Boyer (2007) to affirm that the antagonism
between urban and rural civilization is out of date due to the current phenomenon of
J. L. Braga and M. Dionísio
authenticity and tranquillity. It is, therefore, a reinvention of the rural space as
a place of representation that follows a touristification or a patrimonialisation
process (Reis 2012).
During the 1960s and early 70s of the twentieth century, Portugal witnessed an
intense rural exodus towards urban centres (and emigration to Europe) that depleted
its agricultural labour force (Avillez 2015). In 1970, the urban population already
comprised 77% of the Portuguese population (Rosas and Mattoso 1993). This process
resulted in a concentration of about 2/3 of the Portuguese coastal population between
Braga and Aveiro and between Leiria and Setúbal (Silva, Lima and Chamusca 2010).
Thus, this phenomenon of accelerated urbanization led to the desertification of rural
areas in the interior of Portugal, due to the exodus of young people to the cities,
leaving the countryside to the elderly (Águas and Antunes 2017; Ribeiro and Marques
2002). Consequently, the Portuguese rural world has been going through a crisis that
has been manifesting itself in the steady decrease of agriculture’s weight in the
economy, the decrease in agricultural yield indices, the scarce capacity to attract
investments to other sectors, unattractive living and working conditions, and environmental problems related to pollution, rural exodus, erosion and forest disasters
(Cavaco 2004).
3 Multifunctionality and Rural Sustainability
In Europe, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been the main force responsible for current rural landscape planning, which has undergone numerous changes in
the last decades. Indeed, there has been an adoption of rural development strategies,
aimed at preventing socio-economic stagnation and environmental degradation. The
Mansholt plan, issued by the European Commission in 1968, constituted a key document for the restructuring of rural Europe; it sought to prevent Europe from depending
exclusively on the production of food supplies (Lane and Kastenholz 2015). The
restructuring of the European rural economy materialised itself in a change of the
use of space and in the allocation of the rural population to the performance of new
functions, such as the defence of landscape values or the upgrading of endogenous
resources (Tirado-Ballesteros and Hérnandez-Hérnandez 2018; Cánoves et al. 2004).
Therefore, the rural space is less a producing space and increasingly more a produced
space (Covas 2010). In Portugal, rural abandonment was intensified by the implementation of the CAP in the late 1980s of the twentieth century (Eusébio et al. 2017).
In fact, the CAP has proved to be inadequate for the Portuguese agricultural reality,
as it does not favour the sustainable development of rural areas (Alberto and Almeida
2011).
Concomitantly, since the 1970s, in some European countries such as France, there
has been a return of people from the city to the countryside, in a process that was called
neo-ruralism (Canditto 2010). This fact led Boyer (2007) to affirm that the antagonism
between urban and rural civilization is out of date due to the current phenomenon of