The Landscape in the 2014-2020 Rural Development Programme for Apulia Region

This paper, after examining the concept of landscape, looks at the importance that Apulia's 2014-2020 Rural Development Program (RDP) assigns to the landscape itself and to its protection. It analyses the process leading to the final version of this document and to the measures it contains concerning landscape conservation. Notwithstanding the central role of the landscape in the scientific production and in the official documents, the paper shows that those in charge of formulating the Program did not give enough importance to this issue: in fact, it was considered as a marginal aspect in Apulia's RDP and was dealt with in an extremely superficial way.