Ten years of the European Landscape Convention: Ordenació i gestió del paisatge a Europa

Rafael Mata Olmo
Department of Geography, Autonomous University of Madrid

The year that has just begun is the tenth anniversary of the ratification of the European Landscape Convention (ELC). For most of Europe and especially for Spain, the first decade of the 21st century was a period of great territorial change with negative consequences for the quality and values of many landscapes. Directed by the implacable logic of the market, the magnitude and speed of these changes, linked in good measure with urban development but also with processes of agricultural intensification and abandonment, have led to the belief among the public that such transformations are inevitable and shaped by uncontrollable dynamics.

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Results of the international seminar

The international seminar "Landscape and Education", held on 19 and 20 November in Barcelona, at the Auditori Caixa Catalunya La Pedrera, was an occasion for experts from all over Europe to reflect on the importance of landscape education for improving quality of life in society and to speak about concrete experiences on landscape education at different levels of regulated and non-formal education. Around 200 people from Catalonia, the rest of Spain and different European countries attended the seminar. The high degree of interest it aroused prompted the Observatory to decide to make video recordings of the presentations, which are available on its website. Furthermore, in 2010 the seminar's results will be gathered in a publication with the same name, which will form part of the Observatory's "Plecs de Paisatge" collection.

Debate sessions as part of the civic participation process for the Landscape Catalogue of the Comarques Centrals

As part of the process to create the Landscape Catalogue of the Comarques Centrals, the Landscape Observatory of Catalonia organised three debate sessions directed at the most representative group possible of landscape stakeholders and people who know the Comarques Centrals region. The aims of these sessions were to contrast the work performed by the teams of experts and to reach a consensus on proposals for landscape planning and management in the Comarques Centrals with the main stakeholders involved in landscape management. The sessions took place in Igualada, Manresa and Vic on 10, 14 and 16 December, respectively. They were attended by 52 persons representing various local entities which had been called especially for the occasion. Minding the diversity of interests that come together in landscape issues, the debates enjoyed the participation of professional colleges, agrarian unions, town councils, county councils and bodies that manage protected spaces. The results of the three workshops will be taken into account by the landscape catalogue's drafting team, together with the proposals collected though the electronic consultation section on the Landscape Observatory's website.
Other tools of civic participation have already been used for drafting the Landscape Catalogue of the Comarques Centrals, such as information sessions and participation by the populace at large (June 2008), direct interviews with the main stakeholders involved in landscape management (January, February and March 2009) and online consultation, which will remain active until 1 March 2010.

The Landscape Observatory of Catalonia is named representative of the European RECEP-ENELC network's new Technical Coordination Board

As part of the 6th meeting of the Executive Board of the European Network of Local and Regional Authorities for the Implementation of the European Landscape Convention (RECEP), which was held in Seville on 3 December 2009, RECEP-ENELC's Technical Coordination Board was constituted, and its headquarters set to be located in the Patio de Banderas in Seville. This office will lend technical and scientific support to RECEP-ENELC's projects and activities. The six representatives for the aforementioned Technical Coordination Board were also chosen at the meeting, with the Landscape Observatory of Catalonia figuring among them. The other five members come from the regions of Basilicata (Italy), Venetto (Italy), Prahova (Romania), Mallorca (Spain) and Västra Götaland (Sweden). The representatives' role will be to monitor and steer the work of the Technical Coordination Board.

The PaHisCat project

The landscape catalogues of Catalonia demonstrate the extraordinary variety of landscapes in Catalonia. The 135 identified and characterised landscapes that cover the entire Catalan territory are the result of an historical evolution that has formed their character and identity. In line with similar experiences undertaken in other European countries, such as England's Historic Landscape Characterisation programme, for example, the Landscape Observatory of Catalonia, commissioned by the Government of Catalonia's Ministry of Town and Country Planning and Public Works, began a line of research through the Paisatge Històric de Catalunya (PaHisCat) project at the end of 2009 on the historical evolution of landscapes in Catalonia as a complement to the landscape catalogues. Carried out by researchers from the University of Lleida, with whom an agreement has been signed, the project is currently scheduled to last one year, but with the possibility of extending it.
The PaHisCat project pursues a two-fold purpose: on one hand it studies the landscapes of the past in order to better understand how they evolved, and on the other hand it looks toward the future to establish patterns that can be used to improve the protection, planning and management of landscapes of Catalonia. For this first year, PaHisCat's field of study centres on the landscape units of Conca de Poblet, Horta de Pinyana, Terraprims and Vall Cerdana.

Theory and Landscape: Reflections from Interdisciplinary Perspectives

On Thursday 25 and Friday 26 February 2010, the Auditori Mercè Rodoreda at Pompeu Fabra University will host the international seminar Theory and Landscape: Reflections from Interdisciplinary Perspectives. The seminar begins with a concept of landscape as an interdisciplinary category rather than a single theoretical framework, understanding that it can only be approached with a new discourse created by crossing focal points. Some of the major topics to be discussed at the seminar include: the epistemological debate on the concept of landscape and its theoretical and practical applications; reviewing and updating the different currents of thought on the concept of landscape; the inflationary presence of the idea of "landscape" and the trivialisation of its content; and, finally, landscape in artistic discourse and contemporary artistic creation. The round table discussions will provide the ideal structure for the debate and exchange of ideas among the speakers and the public attending the congress. Since it is conceived with a theoretical and critical nature, the seminar is addressed first to universities and the academic public, and then to professionals in the fields of heritage management and artistic creation.

Watch the Frontiers, See the World

This is the title of the international congress that a university group linked with the magazine Mirmanda is organising for 19, 20 and 21 March in Puigcerdà, Bellver de Cerdanya and Llívia. The aim of the congress is to debate the crosscutting nature of the frontier. It deals with analysing and debating the frontier (or the "non-frontier", as they themselves define it) from different points of view (e.g., landscape, identity, the economy, language, psychology and history, etc.) in order to understand what it means for Europe in the 21st century. It is for this reason that the congress takes the format of an essay, in which the speakers bring their most personal feelings linked with their work of years doing research. In addition to the presentations by renowned experts from Catalonia, the rest of Spain, Europe and the Americas, there will be a round table discussion in which experts and independent professionals will engage the main ideas that emerge in order to discuss them within the context of Europe today, as well as to evoke the vision and application of Europe's frontiers which have been projected to the rest of the world for decades. Alongside the congress, there will be an exhibition of posters of works by various authors and a photography exhibition by Ernest Abentin, who works on the relation among the artist's perspective, nature and the frontier. For more information, click here.

New regional landscape law in Emilia-Romagna

The administrative region of Emilia-Romagna has approved a new law on protecting and valorising the landscape (Regional Law of 30 November 2009, no. 23) with a two-fold objective: to adapt to the dispositions of the Code for Cultural and Landscape Assets and the European Landscape Convention; and to improve the quality of cities, peripheral zones, degraded areas and the landscape in general. The law will provide for instruments that work together with the Regional Territorial Plan so that places to live, work and have fun can hold on to their meaning and territorial references, since these are the bases of a community's sense of belonging to a place. The Law also provides for the Regional Observatory of Landscape Quality to monitor landscape transformations in the region. For more information, see the Law here.

PARC ENDINS: La percepció del món rural als paisatges naturals protegits

This study was carried out by the Rural World Foundation (Fundació del Món Rural) on the relationship of coexistence and compatibility between protected areas and the rural world and the agrarian activities that have sustained and continue to sustain it.

Paisajes de Aragón

This website is a tool for collecting and disseminating information by using surveys on perceptions and valuations of the landscapes of the counties of Aragón. The objective is to create maps of the landscapes of the autonomous community of Aragón which can be used to chart, characterise and valuate the different landscapes present in the territory.

Microsite: Database of Landscape Character Assessments in England

A database created by the Landscape Character Network with maps, profiles and various information on each one of the English landscape units, or, as they call them, "joint character areas". This tool is a resource for landscape planning and landscape policies.

» Events of January and February