Landscape criteria for local world

The Landscape Observatory of Catalonia, aware of the importance of the landscape at the local level, has compiled the principles and criteria contained in the Landscape Catalogues with the aim of preserving, improving and promoting the local landscape, and has made them available to town councils, associations, organisations, professionals and the general public who may be interested.

In this context, we have also compiled a list of existing documents relating to municipal regulations that may be of use to you.

General principles

• A quality landscape is an essential asset for the future. The quality of the landscape (whether urban or rural) boosts the inhabitants' quality of life and wellbeing and is intrinsically linked to the image a town projects.
• Attention is not paid solely to singular and exceptional landscapes, but also and especially to those encountered in everyday life. It does not focus on protecting so much as on managing and planning the landscapes we see every day.
• Landscapes that are meaningful and have personality have a better chance of prospering than homogeneous or trivialised landscapes, as they enhance the feeling of belonging to an area and boost the self-esteem of a place at the same time.
• In today's globalising world, where regions compete with each other to stand out, the quality of the landscape (urban, peri-urban or rural) is a factor of economic competitiveness.
• The landscape generates economic opportunities and is a focus of entrepreneurship that creates jobs on the local scale (landscaping, planning, peri-urban agriculture, etc.), as well as in creative sectors (film, advertising, fashion, restaurant industry, design, etc.).
• There are opportunities for local cooperation between the public and private sector (businesses, foundations, etc.) to conserve, improve and recover the landscape through systems of patronage.
• The values of local landscapes may help to reconfigure or a make a transition to a new model of collective values (cohesion, solidarity, beauty, etc.).
• The landscape acts as a factor of social cohesion and integration, especially in everyday settings.
• Natural and cultural values, as well as their symbolic and identity-related heritage, must be maintained and conveyed to future generations through education.