The purpose of this study was to explore the potential of agricultural heritage as a sustainable agricultural and rural paradigm with a focus on the “Argan-based agro-sylvo-pastoral system in the area of Ait Souab-Ait Mansour”, a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) site in Morocco. Based on the inscription criteria of the GIAHS, we analyzed the economic-industrial, sociocultural, and ecological-environmental perspectives and presented strategies for revitalizing agricultural and rural development cooperation through the Moroccan Argan GIAHS. The argan tree has been a source of economic, cultural, and environmental stability for the Berber people for centuries, but today it is exposed to many threats. In particular, the declining consumption of argan oil by Berbers, the lack of financial independence of women's cooperatives, and the over-exploitation of the tree suggest that it is time to balance the three pillars of environmental, economic, and social sustainability that development has sought to achieve. Agricultural heritage can be preserved when local people take ownership of their heritage and utilize it to generate economic activities. Only a symbiotic way of life between humans and agricultural heritage can overcome the possibilities and limitations of the ecological environment and generate local value through the accumulation of knowledge, technology, and culture. Only on these premises, can local self-sustaining development based on the pluralistic values and public functions of the world's important agricultural heritage be possible.

Since FAO introduced the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems(GIAHS) in 2002, 36 sites of 15 countries so far have been listed on GIAHS. This study aims to find the important agricultural heritages of Korea and to prepare the methods for them to be selected as GIAHS. We have analyzed the proposals of the 36 GIAHS listed in order to study the characteristics of their components of the agricultural heritage which worked for being selected. To analyze the components of the agricultural heritage first, agricultural heritage was classified into 13 types and 42 components in light of GIAHS criteria. Then central themes were set to analyze the relevant contents in the proposals. They were, the type of GIAHS Site, significant agricultural landscape, the agriculture-forestry-fisheries-livestock linkage systems, the multi-layered, inter-cropping, circulation cultivation systems, the soil and water management systems, the conservation of agrobiological diversity and genetic resources, the history of the agricultural heritage, the succession of traditional farming techniques, the cultural diversity and so on. Most GIAHS are located in mountains, grasslands, rivers and coasts, desert than in plains, through which GIAHS assure us that it is the heritage of human challenge to overcome the harsh geographic environment and maintain a livelihood. In these sites the traditional farming techniques are carried on, such as mountain clearings, terraced rice paddies, and burn fields, and the unique irrigation systems and agricultural landscapes are well maintained, and the eco-friendly traditional farming techniques utilizing abundant forest resources and agriculture are well handed down. The origin or home of crop growing, a variety of genetic crop storage, the world’s largest crop producer and preserving cultural diversity are also important factors for the selection.