Italy still boasts a rich heritage of rural landscapes built up over thousands of years; landscapes that, while continuing to evolve, still retain evident testimonies of their historical origin and maintain an active role in society and economy. These landscapes are indissolubly tied to traditional practices handed down from one generation of farmers, shepherds and woodsmen to the next, complex sets of ingenious and diversified techniques that have contributed in a fundamental way to the construction and conservation of our historical, cultural and natural heritage. These techniques were a means to continuously adapt to difficult environmental conditions to provide multiple goods and services, and thereby improving people’s standard of living as well as giving rise to landscapes of great beauty. Landscape heritage and the related traditional knowledge are fundamental resources that need to be safeguarded. The speed and extension of the technological, cultural and economic changes that have taken place over the last few decades are threatening landscapes and the rural societies associated with them. Multiple pressures are constraining farmers innovation, this often leads to unsustainable practices, resource depletion, productivity decline, and excessive specialization, placing the preservation of landscapes as an economic, cultural and environmental resource in serious jeopardy. The result is not only an interruption in the transmission of the traditional knowledge required for local landscape maintenance, but also socioeconomic destabilization of rural areas and a loss of competitiveness of agriculture. This work intends to lay a foundation for the identification, conservation and dynamic management of historical landscape systems and traditional practices, in the face of economic, environmental and cultural globalization, climate changes, and inappropriate policies, in view of the creation of a national register of historical landscapes and traditional practices.