There are cases when long-term human activities and their interaction with nature have created agro ecosystems with high conservative value of flora and fauna. Such agro ecosystems are among others, old grasslands and meadows, specific forms of traditionally managed forests, or even mosaics of grasslands, cultivated fields and forests. These land mosaics, formed usually by traditional land use systems of low intensity, result of handwork with simple apparatus and animals, are known as traditional (or historical) cultural landscapes or shortly cultural landscapes (Ewald, 1994; Meeus, 1995; Phillips, 2001; Konold, 1996; Müller, 2005; Konold et al. 2001; Farina, 2007; Forman and Gordon, 1986). In our country, a precious landscape from cultural and pastoral point of views is constituted by the one in Apuseni Mountains, where, in time, traditional human activities marked the mountain landscape making it unique in Romania and in the world.  With a high degree of novelty and originality, the study of mountain landscape elements brings forward some specific peculiarities to Apuseni, as well as their shaping and maintenance, but also the possibility of loosing them once new exploitation and building technologies are introduced or due to abandonment. The study was performed with the help of satellite images. The management practices of land, in time, have generated a mosaic landscape dominated by landscape elements which individualizes it. Among these, the following distinguish themselves: enclosures, rocks piles, isolated trees, lopped spruces, Fagus with contorted trunk, houses with roof made of spruce  and fir branches, hay piles, fallowed terraces, enclosed arable land patches, forest grazing, meadows with plum trees, permanent and seasonal houses traditionally built, houses built at high altitude etc.

grassland; cultural landscape; traditional exploitation; anthropic activity

Presentation: oral