Abstract

Sustainable science ultimately seeks to minimize the negative impact of human activities on nature however its role is regarded as limited chiefly because it lacks a robust spatial framework to join ecological and social processes Space from a territorial perspective is the result of historical interactions between socio-economic forces governing access to natural resources This paper provides a territorialoriented approach to improve land use policyfrom a spatially explicit perspective We develop a novel approach namely Territorial Configuration implying the dissection of the geographic continuum into territorial conglomerates These are delimited by a range of meaningfully socio-histori calliaisonen compassing a clear understanding of how space is controlled by space holders trigging proximal and underlying governing processes We discuss how the territorial configuration facilitates overcoming pending issues inland use policy such as ecological and geographical articulation legitimate decisionmaking process and increase of certainty on the subject of management among others