The organization of this important event was the initiative and management of Professor Daniel Ruiz Zurita, who introduced the guests and also acted as host. Moderated by Jorge Latorre Izquierdo, Professor of Art History at URJC, the colloquium included, in addition to Mayor Miguel Gómez Herrero, experts Eduardo Martínez de Pisón and Ana Luengo Añón.

Martínez de Pisón is Professor Emeritus of Geography at the Autonomous University of Madrid, a geographer, writer, and mountaineer. A multi-award-winning scientist (among them the National Environment Prize in 1991 and the National Prize of the Spanish Geographical Society in 2001), he is the author of classics such as The Mountain and Art, Landscape image o Beyond Everest, with which he has been able to bring the knowledge of cultural landscapes closer through direct experience and drawing as a tool for exploration.

Ana Luengo Añón holds a PhD in Landscape Architecture, is a member of the Spanish National Committee of ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites), the ICOMOS/IFLA Cultural Landscapes Committee (IFLA stands for International Federation of Landscape Architects), and a representative of the Spanish Association of Landscape Architects. As a landscape architect, she has developed a successful professional career with significant projects in Spain. Her understanding of cultural landscapes and gardening from both historical and contemporary perspectives is evident in her doctoral thesis, published under the title... Aranjuez: Utopia and Reality. The Construction of a Landscape (2006). This is a work that surpasses the historiographical vision of the landscape for an integrative and visionary one, fundamental for the proper understanding of the Royal Site of Aranjuez.

Together with his mother, the eminent landscape architect Carmen Añón Feliú, the Puente Barcas Foundation, the Aranjuez City Council and other enthusiastic people, he prepared, drafted and compiled the information to request the title of Cultural Landscape of Humanity for Aranjuez from the highest authorities of UNESCO, which was granted to him on December 14, 2001, being the first Spanish landscape with this consideration, which has opened the way to many others.

In their presentations, both speakers agreed on the essential idea that the landscape is a living cultural sphere that requires “extraordinary” measures to be preserved. These measures involve collaboration among the various institutions and social organizations involved, but above all, they require responsibility from everyone who inhabits these landscapes.

In the case of Aranjuez, a gift of the Tagus and Jarama rivers, just as Egypt is a gift of the Nile, the responsibility transcends the urban or local sphere and involves a large number of national institutions, extending beyond the Community of Madrid and even the National Heritage agency, hence its designation as a World Heritage Site. Rivers are not merely a matter of plumbing, stated Eduardo Martínez de Pisón: they are much more, the veins of the landscape, and this too is culture. The humanized landscape surrounding a river embodies practical, productive life, and the poetry of the nymphs who inhabit it, inspiring creators to elevate that landscape with their works. Aranjuez is the city of palaces and gardens, but also of the music of Maestro Rodrigo, the paintings of Rusiñol, and the orchards described by Manuel Terán.

The university can contribute to ensuring that this "special" landscape, valued as such by UNESCO, is appreciated in its full scientific and artistic dimension, as an intangible legacy that must be respected and enhanced in quality, as much as it is known and elevated thanks to the knowledge and social transfer guaranteed by literature and the arts.

However, this universal appreciation of the Aranjuez landscape is always at risk, especially if projects like the current threat of a large photovoltaic park infrastructure succeed. This project would destroy the cultural landscape along its edges and would fell more than 11.000 centuries-old olive trees, and has been strongly advised against by UNESCO. As many attendees argued, sometimes the greatest dangers come from "technicians" and their political initiatives, frequently justified by short-term economic gain. Even if legally permissible, these initiatives are often far removed from a genuine love for the landscape and its inhabitants.