Stakeholder involvement has been recognised as a fundamental part of landscape planning for more than 40 years, but real democracy has proved elusive. In Europe, the main legal and policy driver over the past decade has been the European Landscape Convention to directly address landscapes. This defines a landscape as: “… an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of nature and/or human factors”. This view is gaining dominance globally, and makes the perceptions and values of those who engage with landscapes central to their understanding.
A reliance on individual experiences means that the same landscape can be seen in different ways, depending on differing values, which has led to a call for landscapes to be handled as democratic entities. However, rural planning still tends to be undertaken by people who have little or no connection to that landscape. This puts emphasis on outsiders’ views, and is influenced by the tools which planners and policy makers have at their disposal. These deal with landscape as a physical surface, going against the human and cultural dimensions, and have difficulty in dealing with the diverse and dynamic values and perceptions which are truly experienced in landscapes.
Read the full blog post by Andrew Butler on the AgriCultures Network. Do you agree that landscapes should solely be defined by those who actively maintain and cultivate it?
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