Zerain.com: cultural landscape as a framework for integrating sustainable development, heritage and language preservation

The Basque Country has been the locus of great interest in the preservation of rural communities as well as Basque language revitalization. To date, however, these projects have evolved quite separately from one another, both in theoretical frameworks and in practice. Our paper takes the case of “Zerain.com,” the website name for a project created by residents in the rural town of Zerain (pop. 250). We examine the way the notion of cultural landscape has been defined and implemented in ways that emphasize sustainability and active participation. While preserving Basque, the everyday language of local residents, was never an explicit aim of this project, we argue that the framework of cultural landscape, and the commitments to sustainable development and fostering community cohesion, offer a promising model that can address some of the thorniest issues that currently face the language preservation movement: promoting natural contexts for language use and ensuring intergenerational transmission.