F E AT U R E By Gary Charlton, Dave Hooley, Maggie Roe and Sarah Tunnicliffe 1. Hiking trail in Cairngorms National Park, south of the Grampian Mountains. Path around Loch Lee, Angus, Scotland, UK. © shutterstock.com
Celebrating 20 years of the European Landscape Convention (ELC)
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The European Landscape Convention of the Council of Europe promotes the protection, management and planning of the landscapes and organises international co-operation on landscape issues. As the UK remains a member of the Council of Europe the relevance of the ELC to landscape practice continues to be significant.
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wenty years since its ratification, the ELC has made a huge impact on the work of landscape practice. Its adoption was a critical moment in providing clarity, expression and force to the concept of landscape, and it has provided recognition of the fact that landscapes are of vital relevance to people’s identity everywhere. The UK has benefitted from having a formal reference point and a clear framework for the definitions, scoping, human rights and civil obligations that relate to landscapes. Above all, it has provided focus to the way in which we discuss as well as manage our landscapes. The ELC Articles promote the concept and practice of landscape as a powerful integrating role. As 44
highlighted in the European Science Foundation’s (ESF) 2010 Policy Briefing ‘Landscape in a Changing World’, the strength of a landscape approach1 lies in its plurality. It encompasses perceptions from all whose minds bear on an area and/or from the sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities. It provides a framework that can give account for those diverse perceptions and their values when seeking and building consensus for more effective forward planning, environmental management and social wellbeing. Early years The UK Government signed and ratified the ELC in 2006. The following year it came into effect with the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) as the lead department and governance resting with a UK ELC
Steering Group and England Implementation Group. Early research to support the implementation of the ELC in England was undertaken by Newcastle University which highlighted that ‘specific guidelines are needed to help both government departments, regional cross sectoral organisations and sectors to identify how they can incorporate the content of the measures and express the intent of the Convention clearly’ Roe, M. H., Jones, C.J., Mell, I.C, 2008.). Taking heed of this advice, Natural England (NE) in partnership with Defra and English Heritage (now Historic England, HE) focused on the production of an England Framework for Implementation, the commissioning of research, partner workshops, generic and thematic guidance, the development
