Hector Samuel Martinez Sanchez‐Mateos

This article examines perceptions in Australia of the European Union's Indo‐Pacific Strategy, drawing on interviews conducted with government officials, experts and civil society actors. The EU is regarded positively as a friend and partner of Australia and equally committed to the maintenance of the rules‐based international order. Conversely, the results of this research reveal a limited understanding of the EU's Indo‐Pacific Strategy. They also reveal a persistent and limited understanding of the EU in its own right, distinct from the long‐standing bilateral relations between Australia and the EU's Member States. The findings draw attention not only to the need for clearer, more targeted communications by the EU of its strategic intent in this region, but also to the need in Australia for better education about the EU and a more contemporary understanding among policymakers of the EU as a strategic actor. Ironically, the global disruption that has unfolded since 2022, accelerated by the second Trump Administration, has triggered new energy in the EU–Australia relationship. In March 2026, a trade agreement, a defence agreement and negotiations over Australia's association with the EU's research and innovation programmes have all marked a new and more purposeful phase in EU–Australia relations.

Cebrián Abellán, F. (Dir.) (2025). Ciudades medias fragmentadas. Organización socioterritorial en espacios urbanos de interior. Ejemplos de Castilla-La Mancha. Editorial Aranzadi, 255 pp.

Los paisajes de la agricultura surgen de la interacción entre la naturaleza y el ser humano a lo largo del tiempo. Más allá de su finalidad productiva, forman parte de la identidad territorial de las personas que los habitan, donde la tradición, el saber hacer y el conocimiento de los ciclos naturales conforman un legado de clara dimensión cultural. El cultivo del azafrán en Castilla-La Mancha (España) genera un paisaje cultural agrario singular, por su modesta dimensión territorial en relación con el importante peso de los recursos patrimoniales, esencialmente de carácter intangible. El resultado de la revisión bibliográfica, en línea con la Carta de Baeza sobre Patrimonio Agrario, el análisis estadístico y el trabajo de campo, constatan la potencialidad del paisaje del azafrán como motor de dinamización económica territorial a través de su valoración como recurso turístico.

Agriculture is an important economic activity across much of the Western world. Beyond its productive purpose, we can also identify a cultural function that is expressed in the existence of a rich heritage associated with the interactions between nature and humans over time. This heritage includes tangible and intangible assets, the latter including traditional knowledge, history, knowledge of natural cycles, and the identification of the local population with its landscapes; in short, resources are understood as a legacy that needs to be reappraised and passed on to future generations. Saffron cultivation is an example of an agricultural landscape with significant intangible heritage values associated with the know-how and the family-run nature of the farms. The resources linked to saffron cultivation in the region of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) are described in this paper, with an emphasis on how local communities perceive them as an integral part of their geographical identity. The results, following in-depth interviews with different local actors, demonstrate the potential for the intangible values associated with saffron to drive local development in many rural areas once they have been reappraised and classified as assets for attracting tourism.

The increase of accessibility is one of the most important strategies to achieve territorial cohesion and slow down depopulation processes in rural areas. Accessibility is a wide concept with a range of interpretations. When it comes to rural areas, usual accessibility measures introducing proximity and ease of physical connection could lead to misinterpretations and a lack of knowledge for rural areas. This study proposes an accessibility analysis based on connection and function of one of the most depopulated territories in inland Spain: the province of Guadalajara (NUTS-3) which constitutes an interesting case-study because its proximity to the Spanish capital city (Madrid) and the integration of part of the province on its dynamics and economic processes. Results show different rural accessibility levels useful for public policies and decision making on infrastructures. In addition, the accessibility model suggested can be applied in other depopulated rural areas of Europe.

This work deals with the dichotomy between integration and fragmentation caused by artificial elements in the cultural landscapes, especially minor rural roads. In Europe, the rural matrix dominates the configuration of landscapes, and the agents of fragmentation can be analysed from different perspectives. For this purpose, the Land Parcel Information System, designed for the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) is used as a data source to feed the indicators, allowing a high detail analysis, down to the parcel unit. It is applied to a case-study in Spain: the province of Ciudad Real. Here we find different landscape units with different rural and agrarian profiles to test the hypothesis. We use three indicators that allow us to explore the configuration of different cultural landscapes under the fragmentation perspective, using minor rural roads and other elements of the rural matrix that can only be observed at large scale. Then we calculate a composite indicator summarizing the fragmentation results of each unit. Results reveal a significative variability of fragmentation results regarding the land use and spatial patterns of the different cultural landscapes dominated by agrarian and rural factors, with a strong correspondence with the minor rural network underneath. Therefore, fragmentation can be interpreted as a dual process in cultural landscapes where the different land uses have different relations with the infrastructure network.