The Spanish mountains, like most mountains, and especially the Mediterranean ones, can not be conceived regardless of a permanent human action since antiquity. With this precept, the professor of Regional Geographical Analysis of the University of Granada, Francisco Rodríguez Martínez, starts his argumentation about the continuous exploitation of the different use potentials existing in our mountains, object of millenary repopulation.
In his book “Mountains and landscape of the south of Spain”, which has just been published by the University of Granada, professor Rodríguez deals, among other aspects, with the concept of landscape, the mountain as a geographical fact, the possibilities of development, the value of landscape, tourism against sustainable development, environmental protection and natural reserves, among other necessary matters to understand the fact of landscape in this land.
After Switzerland, Spain is the most mountainous European country. “This topic, -professor Rodríguez Martínez says- has to be minimally explained to determine its real value, both in quantitative and qualitative terms. Valuating the mountain just for its height does not permit to gauge all the relevance of the mountainous fact, a true three-dimensional space. However, in a general analysis, using this variable is the only attainable model to establish some essential basic facts. For example, to start to glimpse the vertical integration potential of the traditional exploitation systems and the availability of some resources”.
In this sense, professor Rodríguez points out the particularity of the Andalusian mountains, with a certain number of favourable factors for human occupation, “although it does not mean that they lack the inconveniences and limitations typical of every mountain, besides some specific ones”.
The situation of the Andalusian mountains is, without doubt, a favourable factor. They are located in an almost subtropical latitude and in the vicinities of a warm mass of water, with heat conditions that allow a specific altitudinal development of vegetation and crops. Another favourable factor is that these mountains are “true rainfall islands, which concentrate the humidity and redistribute it its immediate environment, acting as superficial and subterraneous reserves.”
The book of professor Rodríguez Martínez covers the Andalusian mountains and landscape between the margins of the social sciences and nature, with the aim, according to the author of the volume, of “contributing to a better knowledge of Andalusia and, especially, of its mountains and landscape, so singular and significant that they have deserved the praise of travellers, naturists and scientists throughout history”.
Reference
Prof Francisco Rodríguez Martínez
Department of Regional Geographical Analysis
Tel. 958 244 176 / 958 243 643.
E-mail. fcorodri@.ugr.es
