The consequences on landscape of new land uses in the upper forest line

© 2009 Taylor & Francis Group, London, UK. Nowadays mountain landscapes are hugely attractive for tourists. However, in addition to tourists, the environmental quality attracts new residents too. Until now traditional systems have influenced the culture in these areas. Nowadays, these systems have almost disappeared. In this chapter we try to see how this change has affected the mountain landscape and propose different items that help to value the landscape. We specifically focus our attention on the upper forest limit area. In spite of the virgin vision that society has of these spaces, high areas have received human management. We try to measure the evolution of the pasture use and the consequences of this for the landscape. We complete a contemporary analysis of the historical documents and geographical information systems. Finally, the discipline of pedoanthracology is used with the aim of carrying out a long-term use analysis.