The Grands Causses highlands, UNESCO World Heritage
Discover an exceptional heritage, classified at UNESCO!
The Causses and the Cévennes are classified at UNESCO as a "cultural landscape of Mediterranean agro-pastoralism". This territory is representative of the relationship between pastoral systems and their biophysical environments. Indeed, the Grands Causses highlands’ landscapes have been shaped by this practice during the past three millennia. Of remarkable vitality over the centuries, this area is an example for same type landscapes that meet the same social, economic and environmental issues around the world.
From a historical point of view, numerous testimonies of agro-pastoral societies and their evolution are archived and saved: large Caussenard farms, jasses*, lavognes*, millenary drailles* (see local small heritage), hamlets reflecting the great abbeys’ organization of the Middle Ages...
This particular culture is also embodied by an intangible cultural heritage, through know-how and ancestral traditions which are sometimes safeguarded thanks to the contemporary revival of agro-pastoralism.