Awareness of terraced landscapes is growing considerably at the global, European, national and local levels. The most important civil initiative on the protection, preservation, and promotion of terraced landscapes and related cultures worldwide is the International Terraced Landscapes Alliance (ITLA). ITLA was formed in Mengzi, Yunnan Province in the Red River (Honghe) Prefecture in China in November 2010 by enthusiasts and visionaries who met there for the First World Conference on Terraced Landscapes. Since 2010 ITLA members organized further conferences in Peru, Italy and Canary Islands and are preparing the 2023 conference in Bhutan.

270 ITLA members bring interdisciplinary expertise to the ITLA's main objective of acting for the benefit of nature and the people who still live in terraced landscapes. All of this expertise contributes valuable insights to a wider discussion, knowledge and learning on terraced landscapes. Existing journals, conference proceedings and books provide a certain infrastructure for our topics. But it is time to launch a new ITLA activity, a new ITLA journals that focus only on terraced landscapes and deal with these highly complex systems. We are confident that our alliance and the activities of its members will bring valid and reliable information of wider social interest.

Therefore, we are not only aware of all the challenges and opportunities of such a determination to run these journals professionally and in accordance with international guidelines and publication ethics, but also of the importance of Open Access publication. Open Access is based on the view that unimpeded access to published information is essential for a fast and efficient flow of information. All publications will be freely and universally accessible online, authors will retain copyright on their works and all publications will be stored in digital Open Access archive.