This study explored multidimensional value of the Moroccan Figuig Oasis in designated Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) and explored strategies for sustainable management and dynamic conservation. The Figuig Oasis successfully preserves a unique agro-ecosystem in an arid desert environment, utilizing traditional irrigation systems and multi-layered agricultural systems. The local economy relies heavily on the date palm industry and livestock farming. The ethnic and cultural diversity of the region contributes to a strong community-based social fabric. However, this oasis faces serious challenges, including water resource depletion due to climate change, spread of Bayoud disease, population decline, youth migration away from agricultural activities, and economic vulnerability. In addition, the region’s ability to be economically self-sufficient is being undermined by a growing reliance on migrant remittances. Despite a growing number of women engaging in agriculture, they continue to be marginalized in land ownership and decision-making processes. In light of these challenges, this study assessed the status and characteristics of the Figuig Oasis inscribed on the FAO’s GIAHS. This study emphasizes the role of GIAHS as a catalyst for expressing and strengthening pluralistic values and public goods functions of agriculture. Through this analysis, this study seeks to reaffirm that the FAO GIAHS framework is a traditional knowledge system that contains concerns and wisdom of past generations, which, if effectively harnessed, can help overcome ecological challenges and realize the potential for future agricultural and rural development.

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.