Conservation Strategy Evolutions for Improving Territorial Landscape values. A study on Qeshm Free Zone

Human activities have significant impacts on the rapid and deep transformation of the territory - perceived in its general sense; which is evidently manifested with climate changes and the decrease of biodiversity. With an approach to break this problematic, environmental policies have focused for a long time on the protection of natural areas, being the habitats of various animal and plant species. Improved knowledge about the dynamics of ecosystems, along with the recognition of the impossibility of merely protecting natural areas, led to a major mutation of the paradigm in the late 1990s: a static perspective in conservation evolved to a dynamic one in networking biological flows and species diversity in a common territory with human living. By examining the world's experiences in protection strategies for the territorial landscape, this article seeks to analyze the landscape management strategies in Qeshm Free Zone, which owns unique landscape components such as mangrove forests, Chahkouh Gorge, Setaregaran Valley, and Namakdan Cave. The registration of Qeshm Geopark in the UNESCO world list, along with the possibility of creating an infrastructure for the island development, has also caused restrictions in the management interventions of the island's territorial landscape; which is mostly due to a merely touristic approach regarding this rich land. It seems that the application of a partial approach in providing strategies for the management of the territorial landscape in the discussed area, and also the lack of an exhaustive perspective offering a single and general perception of the island is noticeable.