EUROPEAN LANDSCAPE CONVENTION

EUROPEAN LANDSCAPE CONVENTION

A document drawn up on 20 October 2000 in Florence in order to define the rules of protection, promotion, management and landscape planning.

The European Landscape Convention defines “landscape” as an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors“ (Article 1a) and includes natural, rural, urban and suburban areas, indicating that they include exceptional, common or degraded landscapes.

According to the European Landscape Convention, landscape protection means actions to conserve and maintain the significant or characteristic features of a landscape, justified by its heritage value derived from its natural configuration and/or from human activity. Landscape planning, on the other hand, means strong forward-looking action to enhance, restore or create landscapes.

The guidelines of the Convention are addressed to all Member States. The European Landscape Convention requires the parties: legal recognition of landscapes, the establishment and implementation of landscape policies, the establishment of participatory procedures for the public and local and regional authorities interested in defining and implementing landscape policies, the integration of the landscape into their regional and urban planning policies, and any other policy (cultural, economic or environmental). The Parties shall also undertake to promote landscape issues, including through the training of professionals and the implementation of landscape awareness programmes in schools and universities. Within the framework of European cooperation, the Parties declare to carry out joint research projects, scientific and technical cooperation, exchange of specialists and information. The European Landscape Convention is doubly innovative: firstly, it is the first document which systematically defines the ways of landscape management; secondly, by pointing to the existence of ordinary and degraded landscapes, it departs from the understanding of landscape as an area of exceptional aesthetic, cultural or natural values. Poland ratified the Convention on 24 June 2004.

[B. F., M. K., M. S.]

Literature:
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