At a decisive moment in the life of humankind on Earth, when the destruction of its natural and cultural heritage becomes an imminent threat, an ontological reflection reveals itself crucial. There is a lack of clarity in the current paradigm regarding the identification of natural environments, cultural landscapes, and artificial environments, so this chapter aims to contribute for a debate about them. More precisely, a methodology developed by Machado in the context of ecosystems, establishing relationship with the different typologies of tangible heritage, is proposed. The importance of distinction between various typologies of environments and heritage is supported by the fundamentals of environmental ethics. Founded upon them, the concept of cultural landscape is discussed. The chapter also addresses the concept of artificiality, which is a key tool to comprehend the biosphere state of damage and the genesis of the geological epoch in which we live, the Anthropocene. This is, after all, the reason why it is urgent to protect natural and cultural heritage.
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In what concerns to cultural landscape, Francisco Caldeira Cabral refers that “(...) the humanized landscape (…) is modeled for primary needs of Human being. This means that their final purpose are the Human being, in their material and spiritual complexity, for those seeks try to find material purposes satisfaction, but without forgetting aspects of order, beauty and balance. Searching performs a summary of human aspirations in this world, and so, it is an art, one of the fine arts. “(Cabral, 1993,p.46). However, the values of order, beauty and balance have not been taken into account very often.
As Aldo Leopold notices, the autonomous land ethic values are still refused by the economic value of using biodiversity, “The land-relation is still strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations. “(Leopold, 1949,p.203). This lack of responsibility has been causing an abuse of the land profits over time, leading to resources depletion. It is also responsible for confining nature conservation to parks and reserves, to the species potentially useful to humans and to the action of the State, giving complete freedom to private enterprises. This comes from the scientifically false premise that the elements with economic value of the biotope can exist in nature without the presence of other elements.
This is the scientific basis of ecological consciousness - to recognize the “duties towards nature”.
Nature Conservancy uses the concept of naturalness as a parameter or state descriptor of ecosystems (Machado, 2004,p.96). In what concerns to the first case, Soulé (1986) assures that, “The value—utilitarian or intrinsic—is clearly defined: natural systems and biological diversity are good and should be conserved.” (Soulé,1986 inMachado, 2004,p.96).
In the field of Conservation Biology, Hunter (1996) and Angermeier (2000) define the term «natural» as “anything that has not been made or influenced by humans, particularly by technology.”(Machado, 2004,p.95).
Natural heritage is crucial for biodiversity and ecosystems balance. Marine and terrestrial ecosystems such as coral reefs, forests, savannas and wetlands play important roles in carbon sequestration and storage.