Mainstreaming Landscape through the European Landscape Convention

Karsten Jorgensen, Morten Clemetsen, Anne-Karine Thoren, Tim Richardson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781317413592
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

The European Landscape Convention has introduced a Europe-wide concept of protection, management and planning of all landscapes – not just the outstanding ones. This book reflects on the background to the establishment of the convention, takes a critical look at examples and experiences of its implementation, and discusses future developments for the convention and the management of landscapes in Europe.

A decade after the creation of the European Landscape Convention, this book asks how it has influenced the governance and development of European landscapes, and what role it will play in the coming years.

The authors provide a wide range of analyses, reflections and visions, informed by their diverse experiences of researching, working with and using the convention. The sixteen essays are organised into three sections, focusing on the fundamental concepts and values behind the convention, current projects and experiences of implementation, and prospects for future developments.

Part 1
New ideas of landscape

Photo: Marius Fiskevold

The European Landscape Convention heralded significant new directions and principles for dealing with rural as well as urban surroundings. One of the most innovative elements in the Convention was the conceptual shift: from landscape as scenery to an all-embracing arena, where all kinds of stakeholders have their place. The path to this concept has been long and winding, and the chapters in this section trace some of it. Bruun suggests that the origins of the Convention lie in the growing interest for nature and countryside conservation since the mid-1900s, leading to increased international attention to landscapes. Jørgensen looks at the public parks movement originating in Central Europe in the eighteenth century as another element in the historical development of the concept of public land scape. Clemetsen focuses on the inevitable transdisciplinary character of land scape, which he claims enables acknowledgement of the multitude of meanings and values attached to landscapes. Halvorsen Thorén and Ruggeri discuss the Convention’s relevance in today’s green structure planning and suggest that there is still a long way to go before the ideas from the Convention are fully utilised. In the final chapter in this section, Dramstad and Tveit call for a focus on landscape as process rather than product, in order to enhance the dialogue between managers, planners and researchers.

1
How and Why was the European Landscape Convention Conceived?

Magne Bruun

The questions presented in the heading above obviously were raised in order to provide an introduction to the subsequent contributions of this publication, which intro duce and discuss various approaches to following up on the intentions of the Euro pean Landscape Convention during the decade which has passed since it was adopted in Europe. As to the question why the Convention was conceived, it is hardly possible to give an adequate and comprehensive answer without thorough investigations and elaborate analyses, which are beyond the scope and limits of this chapter. It is therefore the author’s intention to give only a brief account of notions and events concerning the awareness of landscape, which seem important and might serve to shed light upon the process whereby the concept of the Convention started to develop and finally matured. The section describing how the Convention was conceived is based on reports from the Council of Europe (CoE) in the year 2000, without – it should be added – any inside knowledge of the proceedings that had taken place before.

The importance of landscape – a growing awareness in the twentieth century

Landscape has played an important part in man’s everyday life ever since history began. Works by authors and poets, folklore, even the Bible, bear witness to that. A more conscious attitude towards our surroundings and a concern about the qualities of the landscape began to appear during the Renaissance, flourished in the eighteenth century and has grown gradually in strength and impact throughout modern history. At first, the major concern was directed to pristine, natural landscapes of unique qualities. An important, early landmark was the creation of the world’s first national park in North America in 1872.

During the twentieth century, especially after World War II, outstanding land scapes endangered by technological development or by socioeconomic changes started to come into focus, though for a long time there was a persistent notion that the loss of such landscapes was an inevitable price to pay for economic pro gress. There was also a growing awareness that the problem had to be seen as inde pendent of national boundaries. A remarkable book written by the Austrian geographer Walter Strzygowski appeared in 1959: Europa braucht Naturparke (Europe needs nature parks). Here, an overall strategy was presented for the conservation of some of the more outstanding European landscapes, in order to meet the pressure from urbanisation, free market forces and commercial tourism. The whole of Europe was covered in his study, with the exception of the Soviet Union. His scheme was not limited by political or ideological borders (Strzygowski 1959). It should be added that his thoughts hardly had any immediate effects, but a seed had been planted…

The Council of Europe, founded in 1949, gradually took a leading position regarding overall policy for environmental issues within the member countries. Although landscape seldom was explicitly mentioned in the declarations and programmes of the earlier years, important statements frequently had direct influence on landscape policies. A typical example is found in the regional planning charter of 1983, which inter alia states that particular attention should be directed towards areas of great natural beauty, rich cultural heritage and architectural values (CoE 1983).

Rural landscape in focus

The importance of rural landscape was particularly stressed in the 1980s. This was to a large extent brought forth by the profound changes that had taken place in the countryside of many European countries in recent decades. The issue was set on the agenda at several national and international conferences, where the Council of Europe played a leading role as an organising and coordinating body. A few examples may help to illustrate this point.

Conferences on countryside matters recommended that farming in marginal areas should receive increased economic compensation for the important function of maintaining the cultural landscape and also stated that highland regions should be considered areas of innovation instead of being associated with decline and abandonment (CoE 1988).

In 1989 the Council launched and approved the European Nature Conservation Strategy (CoE 1989). Beside fundamental environmental issues and general land use policies, the strategy was strongly focused on agriculture. Here, the important role of traditional farming regarding the upkeep of qualities in the landscape was particularly stressed. Radical revisions of agricultural policies were called for, integrated with policies for maintaining the rural community and environment ‘in all its richness and magnitude’.

The European Campaign for the Countryside 1987–1988, initiated by the Council of Europe, involved 17 participating countries with altogether 145 different demonstration projects. The projects were not limited to outstanding land scapes, but included declining as well as rapidly developing and environmentally sensitive areas. They represented a wide variety of approaches, ranging from rural heritage and landscape conservation to social and economic improvement, etc. Here the idea emerges that the countryside first and foremost should be seen as human living space with opportunities for modernisation in a way which is compatible with environmental needs (Bernfeld 1988).

In the latter part of the twentieth century a considerable number of regional parks were established in many European countries. The general aim was to safeguard sensitive landscapes or rural communities against the forces of international market economy – abandonment and dereliction on the one hand, excessive development on the other. The concept of regional parks is closely related to the philosophy expressed by the conferences mentioned above, where landscape is seen as a resource for local and regional development as well as a commodity that calls for care and conservation. The establishment of the parks was based on integrated models for management, where the upkeep and creation of economic and social well-being was given equal priority with landscape conservation and development. Today, this may easily be seen as early manifestations of ideas that later resulted in the European Landscape Convention.

As an illustrative example, the Regional Park of Etna in Sicily, established in 1987, could be mentioned. The main purpose was the conservation of the unique geological and ecological conditions of the mountain massif and to ensure a sustainable development in the foothills, where increasing suburbanisation was a threatening factor. The park covers an area of about 500 sq. km, with a population of 200,000 people and was organised into four zones with increasing degrees of constraints, ranging from land use control to complete reserves (Cavallaro 1989).

Problems and challenges of landscape planning

When all these different actions and declarations are seen as a whole, it becomes apparent that efforts at that time to a large extent were concerned about distinguished landscapes of special quality or attractiveness. With the exception of the European Countryside Campaign, ordinary or everyday landscapes in urban or industrialised regions, where the majority of people live and work, do not seem to have been so much in focus. However, we should keep in mind that there were remarkable and important examples of the opposite, such as the well-known, great landscape reclamation projects that had been carried out in industrial wastelands from earlier periods, especially in the mining districts of western Germany, England and Wales.

Landscape planning, dealing with landscapes as arenas for conservation, management and development at all levels, had been practised for many decades. Methodology, scope and visions had been developed and tested by renowned planners, especially in Germany and North America, and a substantial planning literature was available (McHarg 1969). Nevertheless, landscape planning had only to a varying extent been adapted and included in planning procedures during the latter half of the twentieth century. In some countries there even were expressions of concern that landscape planning was more or less lacking. However, the firmly rooted practices that long had been established in a number of industrialised countries, e.g. in Germany, apparently acted as influential models and gave important inspiration. In Italy, for instance, there was a breakthrough when a national landscape planning act was passed by the Senate in 1985, and some of the regions soon made landscape plans in accordance with the act, e.g. Emilia-Romagna in 1988.

A report on rural development from the Council of Europe stated that landscape planning was developed to preserve and manage natural spaces on the basis of their ecological foundation and as a part of the total development strategy for a given area. It must play an equal part with the consideration of economic and technological factors both in rural and urban development, but the report added that landscape planning had so far not been generally accepted (Jeschke 1989). Planning is important, but is not worth much if it isn’t followed up by political decision.

In the Nordic countries – Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – the Nordic Council of Ministers launched a three-year project in 1983 in order to develop methods and guidelines for the integration of natural and cultural landscape into the process of spatial planning (Nordisk Ministerråd 1987). As a foundation for this study, a general model was worked out for the identification and description of different landscape regions. It focused upon three basic landscape characteristics: natural components such as geology, landform, water and vegetation, cultural components related to land use and man-made features, and visual qualities and scale. Within the scope of the project, only tentative landscape regions could be shown, but in Norway the work on a nationwide landscape survey was further developed by the Norwegian Institute of Land Inventory from 1991 onwards (NIJOS 1998).

The next step was to agree upon the grouping of landscape values into major categories, which were defined as natural, cultural and scenic or aesthetic values. Traditionally, natural and cultural values have been looked upon as totally separate sectors, perhaps because they mainly have been studied by different disciplines without any common platform of training or methodology. In the real landscape, however, these values occur within the same areas and systems and should be dealt with in an integrated way. Aesthetic or scenic values have had, strange as it may seem, a very low level of prestige in conservation work and spatial planning, at least in Norway. It therefore came as no surprise that this issue turned out to be quite controversial within the advisory board of the project.

Land use interests that were considered in the project, beside conservation, included agriculture and forestry, water-related interests, suburban development, transportation and outdoor recreation. In a more detailed study, a classification model was tried out in order to facilitate a balanced evaluation between economic and conservation interests. This was presented as a tool to indicate ‘yes areas’ and ‘no areas’ in relation to possible directions of future development. The project was concerned with all kinds of landscapes, regardless of their qualitative status (Bruun 1993).

In retrospect it seems quite obvious that the Nordic project was related to and inspired by the works referred to above which had been carried out in order to find means and solutions to further a sustainable use of landscape resources. References to the project are also made almost 15 years later in the Nordic report on the implementation of the European Landscape Convention (Gaukstad and Sønstebø 2003).

An interesting example of efforts to establish national landscape policies is found in Finland, where 27 National Landscapes were designated in 1993, ranging from the metropolitan region of the capital in the south to wilderness areas in the far north (Mansikka et al. 1993). The selected areas were intended to reflect the regional character and cultural identity of the different parts of the country and were not defined by exact boundaries or connec...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Mainstreaming landscape – a decade after the European Landscape Convention
• PART 1 New ideas of landscape
• PART 2 New methods in landscape practices
• PART 3 Democratising landscape
• PART 4 Mainstreaming landscape
• PART 5 Conclusion
• Index
• Plates