Nature Policies and Landscape Policies

The dialogue between landscape protection and nature conservation is often hampered by conceptual difficulties, but recent developments in our understanding of landscape, as in the European Landscape Convention, have shown how nature, in all its forms, is a key element in landscape. Similarly, recent developments in nature conservation show how landscapes can be made more resilient. Nature conservation and landscape protection converge around the idea of working at the scale of distinctive landscape units. This convergence is explored first through the example of IUCN’s Category V “protected areas” (Protected Landscapes/seascapes), which have been shown to be effective instruments for nature conservation and for the protection of agro-biodiversity. Three complementary national programmes in the UK are then described: National Character Areas which identify 159 areas of England which are distinguished by their nature conservation, landscape and other factors; Nature Improvement Areas which are designed to create, improve, extend and connect nature areas across broad tracts of England; and the Landscape Partnerships programme by which lottery funding is made available throughout the UK to support such large-scale initiatives. In all cases nature conservation is helped by being addressed through a landscape context.

Taking a landscape approach to conservation requires us to embrace the complex diversity inherent in these places: recognizing natural and cultural values, tangible and intangible heritage, and history and present-day uses. Such an approach is interdisciplinary and inclusive, linking nature and culture and engaging people in stewardship. This contribution explores emerging trends that support the landscape approach in protected areas policy and practice. Reflecting on various milestone events over the past decade, it briefly reviews key conceptual and policy developments that reinforce collaborative and community governance of protected areas and of the broader landscape/seascape. It discusses the recent review of the IUCN protected area management categories and emergence of the governance framework in protected areas. It notes the growing adoption at national and provincial levels of protected landscapes designations based on IUCN Category V and, in parallel, the use of the World Heritage cultural landscape designation.

Approaches to nature conservation have expanded from mainly species approach in the mid-eighteenth century to landscape-scale and ecosystem services-based approaches today. The EUROPARC Federation has played a significant role in the support of protected areas in developing this landscape conservation approach. Utilising the words of Patrick Geddes, an eighteenth-century Scottish biologist and planner and pioneer in linking man and the environment, when he described ‘The Typical Region’ as

Microcosmos naturae, sedes hominum, theatrum historiae, eutopia futuris

, he described his landscape concept as first and foremost ecology: a ‘microcosm of nature’, but it is also the

sedes hominum

, the seat of humanity, the place where human beings make their lives as part of that ecology. And linked to this is the dramatic

theatrum historiae

, the theatre of history, the past experience that should inform the future. Finally, it is the

eutopia

or ‘good place’ of the future, a place that Geddes believed could be achieved through local and international cooperation and adoption of sustainable technologies (Macdonald M (2009),

Sir Patrick Geddes and the Scottish Generalist Tradition. The Sir Patrick Geddes lecture

, Royal Society of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, 20 May 2009). In this article EUROPARC revisits Geddes original description, for 2013, looking particularly at the role protected areas play in the European landscape.

America’s traditional parks like its national parks were a creation of a time when today’s environmental problems like climate change did not exist. It allowed for parks to be separate and apart from neighboring land holdings and inward looking in their management. Now park managers must be outward looking in order to protect park resources and to realize the ecological, social, and economic roles parks play in their entire ecosystem, nation, and world are parts of their responsibilities. This chapter traces the evolution of conservation from focusing on individual parks and features to addressing whole or large landscape conservation.

The Italian strategy for biodiversity underlines the necessity to integrate nature conservation policies with the active participation of stakeholders and of the government at any level. Moreover, there is a need to combine ecology and economy in a framework where natural conservation is an added value of social and economic development. Policies based on ecosystem services (ESs) and sustainable activities are able to reduce the marginalization of the local productions and to improve new economies fitted on the local resources. In this framework, the park’s role is not only linked to the natural conservation aims but it is becoming critical for an innovative development, based on the huge nature role for the overall collective wealth. The Natural Capital value includes all benefits provided by nature to ecosystems and human habitats. It is a new concept that has to be considered developing green economy. Biodiversity and ecosystem status are critical to underpin the landscape resilience and to adapt the territorial systems to climate change. It is urgent to develop a policy framework that recognizes the interdependence of climate change, biodiversity, and ecosystem service and that implements concrete actions at any levels: global, national, and regional, based on the quality improvement of ecosystems and the ESs. Suitable indicators assessing the ecological quality of a landscape and the policy effectiveness should support the policy framework provided in order to restore ecological function to the overall system.

Spatial planning and environmental restoration are essential corollaries to the management of protected natural areas; however, without a sound awareness of the evolutionary consistency of biocoenoses, the harmonious integration between human activities and ecosystem preservation remains an unattainable utopia. The theorisation of a balanced welfare, inspired by the universal tendency of ecosystems to reach a steady state, has to go along with the defection from any economic greed.

In a brief period, a new paradigm for a comprehensive approach to nature conservation and landscape protection has been put on the agenda, mainly through developments of international and European law. The implementation of the new paradigm by national states requires a common language but not a uniformity of policy patterns. Existing legislative differences between European states not only show different degrees of evolution but also a wealth of cultures and experiences that can be turned ‘into strength’. Two elements of a comprehensive approach are appearing to emerge. The first one concerns the need for national governance both for assuring the guiding and monitoring of policies to be undertaken and for the definition of efficient nationwide principles and standards. The second element concerns the need for the largest possible sharing of responsibility. To this end the people’s awareness and participation, environmental agreements, new rights and duties and the use of property to assure protection can all provide great help. In any case, the task to be accomplished is very hard. The development of the modern environmental law is a very short-term experience with respect to power structures and legal schemes, which are often very ancient and deeply rooted but unsound in regard to the needs of the new paradigm.

There have been many attempts at providing definitions of landscape, and many points of view have been expressed. The word

paysage

is not based on a latin one, which explains the lack of consensus as regards its meaning. The word appears to be based on the term

pays

, which refers to a physical environment. The

Littré

dictionary mentions that

paysage

(landscape) is both “an area of flat land which can be observed” and “a country-style type of painting.” The word therefore has several meanings and is very widely used. But what landscape are we talking about at a time where everything is part of the landscape? The word is overused and this results in confusion. What role did the

pays

play in the invention of

paysage

? What is the place of nature in it? What is the relationship between man and landscape?

Until the nineteenth century, the Western society made a clear difference between territory and landscape, between reality and image. Now, there is a confusion between reality and its image. The landscape as image is an instrument to have an idea of reality, to know a particular character of reality. We want to analyze the reality of different representations, which constitute the fount of our knowledge and also the fount of the sociocultural perceptions of the members of our societies. The images inform on the vision of the society. The people create landscapes through the different languages and give possibility to understand the sociocultural meanings of the landscapes.

“BR are much more than just protected areas” was remarked in 1995, on the occasion of the Seville Conference, a milestone in the history of the Man and Biosphere (MaB) Programme of UNESCO. Being inspired by this ultimate remark, the authors of the paper decided to analyse the evolution of the relationship between the Biosphere Reserves (BRs) and the Protected Areas (PAs), in terms of conceptual and operational approaches developed by both the respective scientific and practitioners’ communities. From being initially identified as sub-portions of pre-existing protected areas – as observed in the early designations dating back to the 1970s and 1980s of the last century – BRs have become larger, in terms of their total extensions, and multifunctional, in terms of their zoning drivers, including the PAs as only one portion of the entire designated territories. Paradoxically, the MaB Programme has never explicitly considered the “landscape” as a specific BR attribute (or nomination criteria), on the contrary to what has happened at UNESCO within the World Heritage Convention, where the concept of

cultural landscape

has become an official category of designated sites since 1992. The analysis concludes by observing how the relationship between BR and PAs may be easily transformed into a

liaison dangereuse

when a clear distinction of the respective primary functions and their territorial implications (the zoning) has not been applied. The two governance regimes can be easily confused with each other with clear difficulties of engineering appropriate management measures and risks of reducing their effectiveness.

A supporting legal framework is an essential prerequisite for the establishment of an ecological continuum throughout the Alps. The Alps consist of eight different countries, each of which has its own legal framework. Moreover, the individual countries may have federal states or provinces with specific regulations. Different legislations in force at various governance levels potentially affect ecological connectivity. Analyzing the impediments for the establishment of functioning ecological networks among protected alpine areas in order to preserve biodiversity for the region is a primary target. This activity was performed on the basis of national assessments. The survey was aimed at identifying the obstacles to ecological connectivity and the best tools to establish and/or maintain ecological corridors and networks. Furthermore, the global dimension needs to be taken into account, as well as the EU legal tool “European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation” (EGTC) that seems to be a suitable one in specific Alpine cases, as a way to facilitate and enhance cooperation at interregional and international levels that reach across borders. It enables regional and local authorities and other public bodies from different member states to join together in a cooperation grouping obtaining legal personality. The opportunities offered by an EGTC are therefore worth being considered in a policy making perspective. The contribution is expected to build on the results of the legal work package of the EU Alpine Space Programme Project ECONNECT, where the Italian Ministry for the Environment strongly participated.

The identification of Natura 2000 sites in Italy has led to a significant change in the geography of environmental protection, by profoundly strengthening the role of ecological and naturalistic values in a country where the collective culture is traditionally more prepared to understand cultural values. In general, the identification of Natura 2000 Sites, carried out according to the guidelines established by Directive 92/43/EEC, was based on a more scientific and less politically “negotiated” process compared to the one followed for the determination of protected areas, by selecting habitats of community interest and not landscape or historical and cultural values. It seems very clear that these are two different types of areas with partially overlapping values that require forms of territorial planning and governance that optimize multiple conservation goals: while Nature 2000 sites protect habitats, protected areas extend their function to cultural landscapes, historical heritage and traditions. The Ecological Network should be a decisive model to classify values and integrate rules, avoiding excessively specialized approaches and applying instead the typical techniques of preservation biology and connectivity conservation, together with routine urban and infrastructure planning techniques.

Since 2000, the emerging international indications (new paradigms relating to the protected areas, the European Landscape Convention, the socio-ecological approach of resilience) have expanded the relationship between protected areas and landscape. The paper reflects on conceptual innovations with reference to the methodological approach of some countries: the assessment of the landscape in the United Kingdom as a tool for defining policies and plans capable of integrating and harmonizing the development of human societies with the conservation of ecological and landscape stability and the territorial enhancement policies in the Netherlands that promote territorial development starting from nature and the landscape.

The background regarding landscape and protected natural areas in Italy is characterised by a twofold situation: the first concerns the country’s long and historical tradition of landscape protection, while the second concerns the significance of parks and protected areas as a consequence of their spectacular growth in terms of numbers and surface area. In this regard, regional authorities have played a crucial role in replacing or accelerating government initiatives. The European context provides a framework for understanding the need for cooperation between stakeholders and institutions both in nature conservation and landscape policies, standing in stark contrast to the current institutional framework in Italy, which is unclear in its separation of such competences.

Three laws, dealing with landscape, in Italy represent a significant field of study for the analysis of the relationships between landscape policies and nature policies. Although other acts treated the same topic, these are the most important ones since they started the territorial policies on landscape protection (and nature protection) and set landscape planning as an operative tool of protection. These laws, issued in 1939, 1985, and 2004, offered an overall and coherent vision of the subject; this is why I have analyzed them taking different aspects into account: the meaning of the word landscape, the system of values according to which the quality of a landscape is assessed, and the relationship between landscape and nature and the form and structure of the landscape planning tools. Throughout the years, there has been a considerable evolution of the meanings, the relationships, and the operative tools for the protection of the landscape, but at the same time, there has been a relative independence of the meanings and values from landscape planning. Since meanings, values, and relationships are not always expressed explicitly, the laws have been analyzed through methods borrowed from the cognitive sciences, particularly from the theory of conceptualization.

This contribution briefly reflects on the evolution of nature in the city, according to the existing literature on landscape in the Italian urban planning tradition. New approaches to the urban nature conservation strongly depend on the regulations that planning can give in terms of local ecosystem services, absorption of pollutants in the atmosphere, noise reduction and allocation of places for recreation. The conservation of nature in the city is also part of the global effort to stop the biodiversity decline. In fact, landscape, the urban one, has the ability to introduce the social dimension and is therefore functional to the implementation of urban nature conservation frameworks. Current urbanizations, which are closest to natural areas, often demonstrate at all scales a lack of social and ecological relationships: the risk is a conceptual and physical insularization, which reduces public support to nature conservation, causes a further loss of biodiversity and does not promote the generation of new ecosystem services. One of the main future challenges will therefore be to convert the existing conservation strategies and introduce specific regulations in planning for natural areas that may be better integrated with the urban context: this contribution discusses the fact that the landscape can be the element that may drive this integration.

In recent years, peri-urban agricultural landscapes are gradually receiving significant support in the context of five main fields. The first is from the European Landscape Convention (ELC), since its Article 2 refers not only to outstanding landscapes but also to everyday or even degraded landscapes. A second support is provided by the field of cultural heritage and cultural landscape, connecting the role of agricultural landscapes to patrimonial values. The understanding of landscape as heritage is quite recent and it is connected to the evolution of the heritage concept itself towards ideas such as the “heritagisation of territories and landscapes”. Within this frame, agricultural landscapes are actually being considered as an important part of European heritage. Multifunctionality of agriculture and landscape offers a third approach to strengthen agricultural landscapes based on their role of developing multiple functions and their corresponding economic, ecological and sociocultural services. From the field of protected areas, the advances in its conception and role is leading to an inspirational framework to be applied beyond the traditional boundaries of this body, giving new opportunities to link nature protection and landscape, including agricultural landscapes, which are recognised in some cases as important ecosystems and biodiversity foci. Finally, from a spatial planning viewpoint, different instruments could offer specific solutions to protect and promote

vegas

and

deltas

.

Since 1987, Switzerland’s Federal Inventory of Mire Landscapes of Particular Beauty and National Importance has provided an instrument for the integration of nature conservation and landscape protection. Mires and mire landscape protection are strictly regulated. However, research results show that neither the goals of mire protection nor those of mire landscape protection are being achieved. The reasons for this are manifold and, in particular, have to do with a lack of coordination between the various policy areas that shape mire environments and mire landscapes. There are several key challenges involving different political and administrative levels. At the national level, mechanisms must be devised that enable differentiated regional implementation of national sectoral policies. In the context of cantonal structure planning, regional nature conservation and landscape protection priorities should be established based on existing regional potentials vis-à-vis the natural environment and landscapes (including protected biotopes and landscapes). At the regional level (spanning multiple communes), integrated planning instruments and governance structures should be developed so that implementation of national and cantonal sectoral policies may be harmonized under the umbrella of regional and integrated development plans. These adjustments to Switzerland’s institutional system are necessary to enable far-reaching integration of nature conservation and landscape protection when setting regional policy priorities. This would strengthen the protection of mire landscapes and other integrative instruments such as regional nature parks of national importance.

Today, there is widespread hope that it will be possible to achieve an alliance between the policies developed inside protected natural areas and landscape policies, in that such an alliance is considered to be beneficial for the conservation of both nature and the landscape. One place that may have the right qualities to host this alliance is the Protected Landscapes (category V protected areas, according to the IUCN classification system), where natural and cultural values are closely connected. This paper uses three Protected Landscapes along the Spanish, French, and Italian coasts in its case studies to verify the methods used to implement policies for the landscape. A rather varied picture emerges, in which more and less positive signs of the “Park-landscape” alliance are identified, and these signs in turn indicate some possible paths to follow to promote this link.

According to its programme and priorities, the IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation (IUCN-Med), with the support of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development (AECID) and in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment of Tunisia and the High Commission for Water and Forests and the Fight against Desertification of Morocco, implemented between 2011 and 2012, a project for improving decision making and capacities for planning and managing ecotourism activities in and around protected areas in two countries (IUCN Med

2008

). The specific objective of the project was the elaboration of a Strategy and Action Plan for ecotourism in natural protected areas in the Maghreb and the development of guidelines for its implementation in two pilot areas: the Talassemtane National Park in Morocco and Jebel Zaghouan National Park in Tunisia. To achieve this aim, the approach of the European Charter for Sustainable Tourism was selected. This paper describes the methodology followed by the project, providing, in its final section, an analysis of the main achievements and concerns through its development, focusing on the need of improved participation in territorial planning.

In recent times, increasing interest has been focused on recreational aspects of protected areas and landscape in general. Such interest derives from both the importance of this issue itself and its connection with tourism. Furthermore, the management of protected areas has considerably evolved over the years. The turning point in Italy was the promulgation of the Framework Law on protected areas (Law no 394/1991). Thanks also to this law, which breaks with the dominant previous approach, gradually the protected areas started to be considered not as a limitation or a constraint to the development of the territory but as a source of competitive advantages. The protection of the territory and the environment through the creation of protected areas may be considered as a special case of supply of a public good, which is not ensured by the market. In fact, since individuals and enterprises are encouraged to behave as free-riders when dealing with the environment, the intervention of the public actor is necessary in order to create punitive policies and/or incentives aiming at limiting the exploitation of natural resources and safeguarding their quality. Therefore, natural parks and protected areas are an important element to be valued, but, since it is not possible to evaluate them through a price as for market goods, it is necessary to use economic instruments and evaluation methods able to quantify their value indirectly.

Current management of large protected areas is faced with the twofold challenge of fulfilling its core mission of nature conservation and landscape protection while also responding to more complex societal expectations. The latter refer to regional development in particular and shaping of the future in general. Accordingly, research into protected areas should shift its focus towards regional shaping of the future within the framework and by means of large protected areas, if expectations are to be met. This would reflect the paradigm shift in area protection we have witnessed, transferring its emphasis increasingly towards the societal significance of protected areas on one hand and the integration of protection and development on the other. This contribution follows up on the results of a workshop organized by an international panel of researchers, managers of protected areas and representatives of protected area networks, which was held in St Pierre de Chartreuse (France, October, 2011). The following paragraphs will discuss the role of structures and processes of participation and the emergence of configurations of regional governance in the context of protected area development in view of the results mentioned above. These issues have gained relevancy in the current phase of protected area policies of the early twenty-first century and open up an array of important questions to be explored.

The role of Nature Parks today is not only linked to biodiversity protection, but they are also territories where to experience a sustainable economy. A culture, which combines nature conservation and local sustainable development, led to the growth of protected territories in Italy (from 3 % to 11 % over 20 years). Now we have to make a step further: while we need to improve the quality of protected areas management, we also have to increase awareness among people that nature conservation requires our active participation. People themselves, in fact, are the most important custodians of the land and its naturalness. The Land Stewardship project has been a successful way to make owners directly involved in nature conservation and enhancement of biodiversity. Becoming a real worldwide movement, Land Stewardship is a tool to stop building extension in green spaces, thus protecting the most important resource for every country.

The application of governance practices in the Italian Gran Sasso and Laga Mountains National Park (Abruzzo region) represents the case study on the base of which this paper explores some issues about conservation and enhancement of landscape. The analysis of the pros and cons expressed by local stakeholders with regard to some infrastructure initiatives the Park managed on its territory highlights the need to combine these types of actions with processes of more inclusive regional development. A central role can be played by the activation of a participative relation between local populations and the parks for the management of territory. Whereas the former are to be meant as important custodians of local knowledge, for their position in between nature and landscape, the latter may represent “bridge institutions”, potentially prone to mediate between the global instances (related to the need to assert sustainability in the ongoing development paths worldwide) and territorial specific social needs.

Defined as voluntary territory-based organisational forms (i.e. tied to a specific tract of land) by which members join on the basis of a contract unanimously underwritten, and in light of the benefits it will guarantee them, the contractual communities can foresee actions to revitalisation and enhance the landscape. This type of civic associationism comprises various types of ‘voluntary social forms’ capable of realising and managing collective territorial resources, placing the rediscovery of ethical, individual and collective values by the members of a community at the centre of their action. This contribution proposes some recent experimentation, at national and international level, of forms of voluntary association of citizenship, with a view to recognising the contribution for the triggering of new actions of active conservation of the landscape. The perspective of research is that of highlighting the elements of innovation within a new model of governance inspired by the principle of horizontal subsidiarity. In conclusion, themes and matters to develop in order to innovate landscape planning will be proposed.

The paper examines the question of whether ‘the sense of limits’ can be consistent with the primary task of landscape planning. During the twentieth century and the first part of the twenty-first century, a growing awareness of the complexity of landscape has contributed to strengthening the ‘sense of limits’. Globalisation, the new media and technology reduce perception of this ‘sense of limits’ as a sense of an awareness of the need for self-control in human interventions on the landscape. The relationships between natural phenomena and the dynamics of these huge transformations are currently a theme of great interest in various studies and theories in economics, the natural and social sciences and planning. Furthermore, these research fields show a convergence between attempts to identify the causes of the economic crisis and related predictions regarding the changes which will be necessary in post-industrial society. The development of scientific theories and social movements such as ‘sustainable retreat’, ‘deep ecology’, ‘degrowth’ and ‘biosphere education’ is based on knowledge about the effects of irresponsive behaviour and the consequent destructive effects on the environment and landscape. It is argued that it is not realistic to imagine such a radical change in human behaviour, which would enable global problems to be solved in a cooperative fashion. Nonetheless, it is possible to draw a number of connections between these theoretical frameworks and the principles of the European Landscape Convention (ELC). A number of recent projects are presented: the Prinzessinnengarten (Berlin), the Cheonggyecheon stream (Seoul) and Lausitz post-mining landscapes (Germany).

In the evolution of the models for the establishment and management of protected natural areas, we assist to the transition from “sanctuaries” of nature, where men are considered exclusively a threat or an interference to eliminate, to tools for conservation of biological diversity in situ through the involvement of local communities. This vision of protected natural areas has been formalised in the International Convention on Biological Diversity and its Action Plans. To implement the CBD in 2000, a new method has been developed that considers the human communities as part of the ecosystems and of their governance assets, called “ecosystem approach”. The ecosystem approach recognises that human activity affects ecosystems interacting with their structure and composition, resulting in an irreversible loss of ecosystem functionality once some boundaries are crossed. At the same time the ecosystem approach recognises particular importance to the role of local communities and traditional knowledge in the definition of strategies and programmes for the conservation of biodiversity. The ecosystem approach requires the definition of clear targets of biodiversity conservation and the identification of the most appropriate community to deal with its management. The introduction of territory’s perception by local communities in defining the European Landscape Convention is echoed in the approach of the CBD ecosystem, particularly for Italy, where the high biodiversity is matched by a high cultural diversity of local traditions and customs. The application of the ecosystem approach to the landscape scale requires a coherent planning approach that includes a proper biodiversity’ conservation plan. These targets must be identified not only for the conservation of each species or habitat but rather for the maintenance of the structure and functionality of the ecosystems.

Although outcomes of complex co-evolutionary interactions, landscape and biodiversity are often addressed by separated policies, thus undergoing the risk of being scarcely coordinated or even conflicting. The contribution discusses such an issue from a European point of view taking as a case study the EU Member States committed in the implementation both of the Convention of Biodiversity (1992) and the European Landscape Convention (2000): as a matter of fact, although almost all of the EU Member States have ratified both the CBD and the ELC, it is not obvious at all that respective sectoral policies addressed to biodiversity adhere to the new conception of landscape promoted by the ELC. The screening of 50 National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) finally puts in light that (a) the coherence to the multifunctional conception of landscape appears at different degrees in EU Members States, oscillating between strictly ecological approaches to more multidimensional ones, and (b) landscape is often used as a means to enlarge biodiversity conservation efforts beyond administrative borders.

The experience of the Italian national parks shows what we might call, using an oxymoron, “the opportunity of limits,” i.e., the potential economic and social benefits resulting from the application of a natural resources management aimed at their conservation. The opportunities created by the presence of a protected area that get across in the sustainable management of tourism and high-quality agricultural products promotion have yet to be identified and defined from different aspects (e.g., from the construction industry to services, from transport to crafts). The future of parks management and role in a wider context cannot be meant as going back to the “park = Noah’s ark” that just saves animal species regardless of the context, and without the participation of the stakeholders, the future will be having a sort of “park hub” or a hub with many links that radiate throughout the territory and the stakeholders, a kind of management model of sustainable development that can support nature needs, companies, residents, and visitors. In order to run the “park hub,” a methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of management as reaffirmed in Jeju is necessary. It is important also to define a clear distinction between the park role as guarantor of the scientific guidelines for the conservation of nature and its role of conveying suggestions and good practices for sustainability.

The European Landscape Convention, in defining the “Landscape policy,” aims, among other things, to organize European cooperation in this field. Arco Latino is an area of political cooperation between level II administrations of the Western Mediterranean in which joint positioning in defense of common interests are articulated. The Association territory covers 320,000 km

2

incorporating 43.5 million inhabitants. The various members of Arco Latino include 8,000 municipal bodies. Within the ambit of the Land and Sustainable Development Commission in 2005 in Barcelona, the province of Salerno proposed a process for cross-border cooperation for the Euro-Mediterranean landscape via the creation of a European Landscape Observatory (OEP) Arco Latino already recognized during the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities for the Implementation of the European Landscape Convention in Strasbourg on 27 May 2004: Document CG (11) 12. In February 2007, in Vietri sul Mare (Italy), the GT “Natural Areas” Arco Latino, subscribed an “Agreement for Landscape” between the promoters of the Observatory to organize European cooperation in this field and promote the integration of nature and landscape policies. This start-up has led to the implementation of numerous programs, such as the project by ENPI CBC Med IB/1.3/350.

Since the 1990s, many issues have emerged concerning fragmentation in nature and landscape studies. The dominance of the ecological standpoint in dealing with these problems emphasizes the importance of conserving ecosystems and biodiversity. Encompassing ecosystems and landscape fragmentation involves identifying several types of sizable systems. A landscape concept comprehensive of natural components, processes and dynamics, and the crosscutting integration of landscapes in the policies that affect them are the primary conditions for a “bridge” between nature-oriented policies and culture-oriented policies. Sustainable relationships among communities and their habitats can be developed through a comprehensive landscape-based planning.

Aspects of governance are very important in territorial policies; the role of best practices is growing and their success is only sustainable if others share them. Paying attention to the perception of environmental and landscape issues is essential in order to implement policies that can be accepted by the environmental and landscape sensibilities of inhabitants and can become a physiological part of their normal behaviour. It is therefore important to examine both the physical extent of a territory that adequately suits the sense of “cultural landscape ownership” in order to organise the choice of management policies at a level that will be comprehensible and that will involve local sensibilities, as well as the criteria that are generally used to condense the various expertise and encourage general and specific value judgements on the conditions of each territory and each landscape.

Monitoring the effects that programmes for sustainability, or plans for the landscape and large parks, have had on the design of the city, on both city-wide and large-area scales, should be discouraging. Principles and new paradigms raised by the environmental question that lack the necessary practical and operational implications regarding design and management, and which are postponed to another time, have little impact on the relatively rapid changes caused by diffuse urbanization and become simply a refrain of good intentions. Elsewhere, this great responsibility regarding the landscape is deliberately and specifically entrusted to urban planning by the European Landscape Convention. The true revolution introduced by this directive is to invite the landscape to square with the matters of the territory and the city in all of its many facets. At the same time, “protected areas”, which directly or indirectly touch more than a third of Italian territory, could become (together with the environmental infrastructure network and the system of residual and decommissioned areas) new spatial anchors in urban and territorial reorganization, provided that these elements become components of the ecosystem of the city and not just cosmetic dressing. The pervasiveness of these themes should cause those interested in territorial government to reflect, going so far as to consider parks and landscape planning as the foundation of urban planning in this special historical moment, particularly if we are able to manage to detach it from the sectoral vision to which it is so attached.

The definition of landscape adopted in the European Landscape Convention implies the pursuing of awareness raising and public involvement as a primary instrument for planning and policy implementation. As in the Italian tradition, national institutions prove slow in applying such principles and coordinating them with traditional urban planning. The main problem consists in understanding the positive role of landscape, as a dynamic synthesis of cultural and ecological features. In many cases, policy-makers and professional actors still consider the theme of landscape conservation and biodiversity protection as limitative entities. Acts and policies related to Protected Areas worldwide can represent a precious background of experiences for the implementation of an operative procedure of territorial management, which will consider landscape and biodiversity as relevant as economic features. Other effective suggestions come from the outcome document of Rio +20, the latest international convention on sustainable development. Integrating landscape and biodiversity in current national laws may prove inadequate. A successful application of the most recent tools of planning based on holistic approaches and including public-participated processes will be achieved only through a radical reflection about traditional policy-making, which is still linked to the division of the matter in obsolete compartments.

Protected landscapes (IUCN category V) make up over half the area of protected areas in Europe and are thus a critical part of Europe’s conservation strategy, but critics have raised serious challenges about their usefulness to conservation. We present information on existing research into their conservation effectiveness. This is used, along with additional case studies from Spain, Germany and Croatia, to provide an initial assessment of biodiversity conservation within category V. Our research suggests that protected landscapes can be effective tools for conservation, but that this is not invariably the case and depends to a large extent on whether they are well planned and effectively managed. This management approach will work better for some species and ecosystems than for others and is not suitable for all conservation tasks. The contribution reviews the available evidence, makes some recommendations about what is needed to increase the effectiveness of conservation within protected landscapes and outlines areas requiring further research.

It is generally acknowledged that protected areas do not encompass the scale necessary for effective conservation of socio-ecological systems. Consequently, there have been repeated calls for a “new paradigm” for conservation that transitions from “islands” to “networks.” By extending conservation to reflect wider landscape perspectives, this approach integrates community development and economic and quality of life interests, thereby forging productive relationships between protected areas and their regional context. This broadened agenda involves many more landowners, organizations, and levels of government and requires coordination, partnerships, and new forms of governance. Drawing from nearly a decade of research, this contribution examines US experience with this new paradigm for conservation and models of network governance. The findings from this research program indicate that three key dimensions are fundamental to governance: engaging a diversity of stakeholders and building consensus, creating and sustaining ongoing networks of partners, and developing a central hub for the network. This central coordinating and facilitating function appears to be an essential governance element as it is the activity of these networks of private and public partners that deliver accomplishments. This contribution suggests that despite their challenges, networked-based models can strengthen social capital at regional levels, thereby increasing capacity for innovation, adaptation, and resiliency.

The contribution identifies new digital sources for assessing and monitoring visual preferences of landscape, in order to strengthen the tools of specific active protection and planning regulations. The subject of the research is the European urban parks of the twenty-first century (that we called digital native) because of their belonging to the digital era and for the crucial role they play in nature and landscape policies. Urban parks represent a bridge between nature and culture, a place of encounter between human projects and the environment, especially since the nineteenth century, when they are conceived to regenerate cities, to improve urban landscapes and biodiversity. An effective photo-based method of investigation is proposed by this research. It deals with users’ visual preferences related to scenic values by focusing on three categories of features: context, structure and functional system. A combination of free and directed sorting procedures based on visual communication analysis was applied to pictures taken and freely published on the web by park users. Quantitative and categorical data derived from the multiple sorting methods resulted from the research. The data allow to actualize sustainable development policies based on shared values. Preference ratings, showing that uniqueness and identity values are the most shared ones, while the values related to nature are less perceived by users, underline the importance of strengthening the natural values perception in future environmental policies.

The aesthetic dimension distinguishes the concept of “landscape” from other concepts such as “environment” and “territory” and is a recurrent justification for conserving both natural and cultural landscapes. However, scenic beauty remains particularly difficult to define and protect under specific regulations. Moreover, the topic is seldom dealt with in spatial planning literature and practice. This lack of a systematic approach severely limits the capacity of public administrations to protect and enhance scenic resources. The paper highlights the need for further research into technical tools and suggests a number of perspectives which call for international collaboration. As a worked example of how planning can deal with scenic resources, an Italian case is illustrated, the Piedmont Region’s “Guidelines for the analysis, protection and enhancement of the landscape scenic characters”. The guidelines focus on the protection of visual relationships, which connect designated heritage assets and outstanding features with their settings and the area as a whole. The implementation measures within the planning regulatory system are discussed, as well as the role of different actors, planning levels and phases.

This contribution deals with the topic of the European Cultural Routes as a tool for landscape enhancement – a tool that seeks to build a commonly shared, identity-based perception of local areas and communities – through an analysis of the recent European policies addressing the issue of cultural heritage. This is an extremely broad topic that has seen a significant growth in the past few decades among European and national institutions seeking to finalise and implement decisions aimed at defining and promoting Cultural Routes. Through an analysis of the evolution of the concept of “Cultural Routes” in the Council of Europe, it emerges that this tool can act as a driving force for developing a new approach to promote the cultural and natural landscape conservation. These routes are part of the EU assets linked to local traditions and identities, history and culture. In such a systematic vision, our heritage – both physical and intangible – must be understood as a key element in building these routes at a European level, as well as the local identity of the areas they cross.

Identifying which aspects should be considered at risk is very important to preserve the environment and landscape. Although the literature on this issue is currently centered on climate changes, the preservation of landscape appears to be closely connected to property rights and local policies. A wide range of applications focused on landscape evaluation has provided a methodological framework, but the inclusion of the economic point of view appears to be more recent. At this regard, the contribution considers the economic valuation of landscape with the aim of highlighting the role played by risk and uncertainty in individual choices. It reviews the limits of expected utility theory and reclassifies according to the method, over a period of about 20 years, a certain number of experimental studies in relation to their valuation goals. Finally, it shows the various sources of risk that affect landscape in order to encourage future applications in this field.

The economic assessment of landscape represents a complex task, and integrated approaches are therefore needed in order to properly consider all the relevant aspects. A valuable support in such a context is offered by the Conjoint Analysis (CA) methodology which refers to a variegated set of mainly statistical methodologies that aim at studying individual choices using preference expressed about various profiles, i.e. several versions of a product or service. Starting from a real case concerning the vineyard landscape of the Langhe area (Italy), the present contribution investigates the use of the Conjoint Analysis for the estimation of the economic value of the landscape.

Nature conservation policies suffer from financial restrictions worldwide. The level of understanding of financial needs of and funding sources for protected areas (PAs) is low everywhere. Landscape areas that are often buffer zones of other conservation areas could greatly benefit from even small investments in PAs due to the benefits for some economic sectors, ecosystems, and human well-being. Global expenditure for PAs would amount to 76.1 billion US $ annually and is expected to increase. Environmental protection expenditure for biodiversity conservation in EU did not increase over the last decade. Tight financial procedures, cost-effective management, and financial planning of PAs do not seem to be enough. Increasing public funds for conservation is unlikely to deliver satisfactory results. Alternative mechanisms to raise funds at the site level are needed to complement traditional ones. PA finance qualifies as an ideal field where mobilizing dispersed knowledge to fund conservation. This is a portfolio, or investment problem, suitable for the application of the “decentralization argument”: many decentralized sources can build a diverse, stable, and secure portfolio, by addressing direct users or beneficiaries of PAs, their goods and services. PA networks are governance models relying on the benefits they deliver to their members that should support decentralization and provide the lacking incentives to dispersed creation and testing of novel financial mechanisms. Decentralized institutions enjoying greater freedom in action are desirable in uncertain situations and when creativity and innovation are needed. PA networks as a governance model may support decentralization.

Agricultural policies and socioeconomic constraints are strong drivers of change in human-dominated rural landscapes of Mediterranean Europe. Changes in rural landscapes can have a strong influence on the perspectives of protection and improvement of the natural and cultural heritage. A shift towards quality production, favoured by institutional financial support, has been recently observed in hilly productive Mediterranean sites. An example of this situation is the Langhe region (NW Italy), where woody plantations such as vineyards and orchards have been cultivated on hillslopes for centuries. In this chapter, we assess the landscape evolution occurred in this study site. Land use changes in the 1954–2000 period were assessed by object-oriented analysis of aerial photographs and quantified by spatial statistics capturing and measuring different elements of landscape change. The expansion of orchards from 1954 to 2000 caused an increase of landscape heterogeneity and the fragmentation of field crops. Orchards expansion has reduced other land uses occupying up to 55 % of former field crops, 24 % of vineyards and 15 % of forests. Changes in rural landscapes, traditionally dominated by vineyards, field crops and forests, were so observed in the Langhe region.

The Conference of Kraków clarified the meaning of cultural landscape as the result of “the prolonged interaction in different societies between man, nature and the physical environment. It is testimony to the evolving relationship of communities, individuals and their environment. Its conservation, preservation and development focus on human and natural features, integrating material and intangible values”. The contribution develops the relationship between conservation and sustainability, seen as the exploitation of the heritage, virtuous propeller for the expansion of these environments, which have been influenced by a historical continuity of functions and have been the economic source for noble complexes, such as holiday destinations or temporary residences of the owners. The land, crops and historical sediments represent a complex heritage of artistic and cultural as well as economic values. The idea is to identify, in addition to the recognition of certain places and objects as heritage of interest (world, European and national), the historical systems connected to it, to propose strategies destined to pursue continuity in this virtuous historical relationship or new programmes that take part in this aim. Yet, these presences and their systems are currently besieged by politically and economically driven local transformation processes and by plans and legislation that are often indifferent to their values and have little involvement in the communities concerned.

According to the ELC definition of “landscape,” its management and protection are to be based on the use of land and natural resources for farming and other activities. In this context, farms are both “partners” as consumers of the territory and at the same time “competitors” with other productive activities. The Authority of the Po and Orba River Park launched an Information Desk (INFOFIUME) to promote the joint planning of such activities within and beyond the boundaries of the protected area, to increase and protect biodiversity, and promote landscape. The centrality of farms on the discussed issues very often collides with policies that should take into account biodiversity and landscape while supporting the structural and organizational choices oriented to renewal agriculture.

The uniqueness of the landscapes of the Portofino Park lies in significant surviving features from different stages of its “territorialisation” (from its historic landscape, through an intermediate landscape, to its present-day landscape). Different societies have shaped the physical and morphological characteristics of its landscape and conferred it a functional and symbolic value upon the space within it. However, even though formal aspects of its landscape have been more or less preserved (turning it into an “emblematic” place, where the historical relationship between nature and culture is still intact), its environmental values, uses and functions have changed. For many, the area of the Monte is simply a backdrop for the transformation of old fishermen’s houses and farm buildings into luxury seasonal residences, for the use of terraces as in English landscape gardens, and where the evident abandonment and marginalisation of industrial architecture and the “natural” landscape cause hydrogeological instability.

The recently established (2007) Alpi Liguri Regional Park is naturally and culturally related to Piedmont (Maritime Alps and Marguareis protected areas) and France (Mercantour protected area). The park’s uniqueness is due to the coexistence of diverse habitats, which intermingle, as they lie on the boundary between the Mediterranean and the Alpine areas. Here, natural and rural landscapes are profoundly interconnected. Human presence can guarantee the conservation not only of traditional activities (pastures, transhumance, chestnut woods) but also of the natural protected heritage. The establishment of a “protected landscape” to connect the various “natural park areas” would have represented a valid approach to conserving biodiversity and involving communities in park policies.

Florence’s landscape structure has a significant homogeneous status that traces back to medieval times. The introduction of the sharecropping system gave a major impetus to the transformation of such landscape pattern, and the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw its completion, from both a technical and aesthetical viewpoint, with the establishment of villas and farmsteads, churches, scattered houses and hamlets crossed by an ample road network and paths traversed by numerous brooks. This economical and social system rapidly imploded after the second half of the twentieth century while the flatland area, which had been governed by the same rules up till then, had seen a wave of disorderly increasing urbanization; considerable parts of ancient settlements in the hilly areas were preserved; thanks to government zoning restrictions aimed at safeguarding natural heritage and local town planning policies that embraced and enhanced such objectives. Now, about 50 years later from these changes, the hilly landscape is starting to show further signs of deterioration, which, if not duly counteracted, could bring about adverse effects in the next few years. In this respect, it is important to raise a new awareness towards this territory, in the light of previous and subsequent land use constraints that entailed a wide range of solutions for the Florence hills parks project, to no great avail however. Besides political and administrative intentions, the involvement of the population is fundamental, given the vital role it shall play in environmental education programs especially for children, in line with the European Landscape Convention.

The main objective of the preliminary plan for the Institution of the

Lama San Giorgio

Park in Apulia was to integrate the karst channel, locally known as

Lama

, into park planning processes. Indeed, of the possible areas of study, the

Lama

catchment area appeared to be most consistent with the functions of karst valleys, which is not only of a hydraulic nature but also concerns the landscape and settlement systems. Furthermore, the

Lama

catchment basin preserves the physical connection and ecological connectivity of the park to the southeast of the

Bari Valley

. This was the base to develop both the area knowledge framework and the institutional context to be implemented in the governance of the local communities within the basin and the institutionalised phases of the Regional Conferences at the Parks Office (2005–2007). However, some 5 years have passed since that stage and the definitive institution of the park, which has in the meantime been extended to include the nearby

Lama Giotta

area, is still awaited.

In Italy, despite the number of protected natural areas and the abundance of scientific research upon the landscape, the level of control of human pressure on the environmental system is still seriously inadequate. Among the main factors is the disconnection between urban/regional and sectorial planning, in the frame of the detachment of the nature conservation policies from the landscape and territorial policies, which is the focus of the present research. The regional situation is rendered even more serious by the lack of an up-to-date planning law (the Sicilian planning law was passed in 1978), the poor diffusion of territorial and vast area planning (the Regional Master Plan has never been endorsed and just one out of nine provincial capitals has endorsed the Territorial Provincial Plan) and the difficulty of integration of territorial policies and specialized planning tools, falling within the competence of different agencies (regional and provincial councillorship,

Soprintendenze

, Port authorities, free associations of municipalities, etc.). The difficulty of a complete and efficient application of the environmental assessment tools regarding projects, master plans and programmes (such as EIA, SEA). All of these questions today impose a reflection about the existing tools to address such territories. These tools have the limit to be disconnected among them.

Landscape can be seen as a layering of different historical traces; this coexistence of several witnesses implies the possibility of several ways in which landscape policies can be oriented. This contribution aims to explore and analyze the relationship between the presence of historical sediments (namely, the system of monastic

grange

) and landscape policies.

Granges

are particularly interesting as they represent a medieval strategy for territorial control and economic resource exploitation. Through a systematic territorial design,

grange

became satellites of network hierarchical organization, modifying the existent territorial structure and generating new territorial systems. This contribution, treating

grange

as a paradigm, is articulated into two sections. The first part aims to propose an exam of European experiences, providing a synthetic census of contemporary strategic attitude and ideas for valorization towards

grange

, within legislative systems. The second section regards an overview on the effectiveness of contemporary strategies. Through this approach, we would like to provide a comparative view on different local approaches towards a transnational territorial phenomenon.

In the last years, natural parks seem to be affected by a growing interest in energy planning. This attitude is easily explicable with a willingness to contribute to CO

2

reduction, to struggle against climate change, to promote virtuous patterns in energy efficiency, to preserve territory from landscape impacts that energy production equipment could generate (solar fields, wind poles, obliged modification in local agriculture to feed bioenergy plants). This contribution depicts how energy planning is handled by natural parks. After a brief review of the still few existing projects throughout Europe, we focus on the experience run by the Emilia-Romagna Regional Park Po Delta, the first one in Italy to design a real strategic plan for sustainable energy, with guidelines and prescriptions on landscape and nature conservation. The emerging picture offers insights on different issues – why should a natural park deal with energy planning, how to design this kind of actions in a protected area, and which role is assigned to planning and regulation – to incentive schemes and public goods provision.

In the mid-1990s, the valley landscape of Basilicata found itself at a crossroads between two contrasting development models. One was based on the supply of hydrocarbons, with a view to starting up a heavily industrialised process, whilst the other drew its inspiration from local development policies, based on nature tourism and high-quality agriculture. Basilicata attempted to find a middle ground, which could respect the principles of ecological, economic and social sustainability in agreement with oil company activity. Twenty years later, the Agri Valley is a far cry from achieving the following two goals for the future, putting itself forward as a model for a sustainable economy and becoming a large-scale centre for energy production. The construction of the biggest onshore extraction plant in mainland Europe in the heart of the Lucanian Apennines National Park is producing a serious environmental impact. If we consider the current political, economic and financial climate, the now well-established cultural concepts of

smart growth

and the OECD

Better Life Index

forecast, which considers the well-being industry and the

green economy

to be the main driving forces for the global economy over the next 20 years, does it still make sense to obsessively consider oil as the area’s main driving force for growth? The aim of this contribution is to highlight and discuss the conflicts and paradoxes which stem both from different ways of interpreting the term resource and from the ambiguous nature of identity values in an area where resources’ exploitation implies deeply contrasting notions of landscapes.

The Natural Regional Park of Costa d’Otranto, Santa Maria di Leuca, Bosco di Tricase, is a unique case in the Apulia region because the entire park is stretched along the coast. Along its 57 km there are many natural and historical values. In these areas the increased tourist settlements have recently created serious problems in the landscape, such as the fragmentation of continuity in the protection of the park, the reduction of ecological functions and the loss of landscape identity. The park now has a great opportunity because the territorial plan is currently being prepared: this can enable the positive integration between different planning policies, not only with the protection of natural and cultural values and the environment but also by playing a key role in achieving new sustainable economic development for the entire territory.

The strategic planning has a growing relevance in the national and international context of territorial development and has been for a long time the center of a lively technical-professional, scientific, and cultural debate. In this context, the design of the future of the territories is the path that all local authorities should set out, using the valuable contribution of scholars, social workers, professionals, and all those who feel they can contribute to territorial development. The experience presented here is a management plan of a Site of Community Importance (SCI), located in the Mercantour and Maritime Alps protected area. The management plan of this SCI is a super-local tool called to meet the needs of an area as a whole, crossing the concept of the administrative border, even national, to direct the management decisions to the pursuit of a common goal. Its drafting has been made possible thanks to the contribution of many experts in different fields and to the involvement of local stakeholders, with the goal to ensure the preservation of the structure and function of the habitats and the long-term conservation of the species, while taking into due consideration the socioeconomic factors and values.