The contribution of Local and Regional Authorities to the implementation of the European Landscape Convention - CG (11) 12 Part II

Rapporteur:
Leonora BECKER, Hungary,
Chamber of Local Authorities
Political Group: ILDG

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EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM

I. INTRODUCTION

1. Reflecting growing social pressure in recent years, European local and regional authorities' interest in and commitment to landscape protection and enhancement have made significant progress. In 1994, in response to these developments and as the body representing local and regional authorities at European level, the Congress started to prepare a draft convention devoted exclusively to the landscape. In 1998, after it had approved the final draft, the Congress recommended its adoption to the Committee of Ministers. Two years later, based on the Congress draft, the Committee of Ministers adopted the European Landscape Convention (Strasbourg, 19 July) and opened it for signature by Council of Europe member states (Florence, 20 October). After ten member states had deposited the instruments of ratification, the Convention came into force on 1 March 2004.

2. The large number of signatures to the Convention (28) and the growing number of ratifications (12)1 are confirmation of the political importance national governments ascribe to this new European treaty. This great interest is probably rooted in the convention's novel approach and its likely legal and political effects, both quantitative and qualitative, at local, regional, national and European levels.

3. The Convention's entry into force will open the way to:

4. Reflecting its origins, the Convention pays particular attention to local and regional authorities, by:

Taken together, these provisions provide local and regional authorities with a strong legal incentive to exercise their institutional landscape responsibilities.

5. This report sets out to further clarify these authorities' role in implementing the Convention. This role may emerge within the countries that have signed and ratified the Convention, but also within the context of the activities of the Council of Europe committees monitoring its application at the intergovernmental level. Before considering local and regional authorities' contribution to implementing the Convention the report considers the reasons why the Congress recommended its adoption to the Committee of Ministers.

II. THE REASONS FOR CONGRESS INVOLVEMENT

6. Europe's innumerable landscapes are the expression of the diversity it has expressed throughout its history. The wounds, scars and deformities they exhibit are clear signs of the break up of the European social fabric following the major transformations that have marked the twentieth century. Today, those affected by these upheavals seek positive values in the countryside with which they can identify. Hence the growing direct interest in the landscape, reflecting a more profound unease probably linked to the spread of globalisation and its contrasting effects, in which standardisation and modernisation go hand in hand with growing distortions and inequalities.

7. The transformation from static to mobile societies, aided and abetted by new communication technologies, is tending to break the bonds between people and places. It poses a threat to local communities' geographical roots and speeds up the process of deterritorialisation. Seen from this standpoint the spectacular growth of interest in the landscape is much more than just an aesthetic foible of an over-indulged society, but rather an indication that people wish to re-establish their links with their place of residence, which are breaking up under the pressure of modern-day life. The interest in landscape is therefore an aspect of local communities' relationship with their immediate surroundings and is in large measure the product of the contradictions in contemporary social and economic development. What is revealed is the non-sustainability of this development, and its inability to continue over time without threatening the heritage of resources we can pass on to future generations.

8. In response to this situation, and to the social demands that have been created, there has to be as much local input as possible in all areas of public decision making. Establishing a close relationship between public policy and local resources is a precondition for sustainable and balanced development. If government decisions are to lead to something more than outside exploitation of local resources there has to be a "territorial added value". The local political community must measure up to its responsibilities, which calls for a concerted effort from the entire European political class.

9. In accordance with the subsidiarity principle, then, local and regional authorities must play a part in drawing up and implementing landscape policies. Giving such policies a firm local foundation offers those concerned an opportunity to express their human and social potential – based above all on their knowledge, traditions and local cultures, coupled with a direct and profound understanding of their localities – in a democratic setting. The result is likely to be a more effective and sustainable use of resources, whose diversity must be respected.

10. Viewed in this way landscape policies can help to defend and enhance the values that underlie local identities and counter the trend towards bland uniformity and standardisation triggered by current transformations. However the values that go to make up identity have to be reconciled with the inflow of alternative social and cultural values and other sources of "contamination" present in society. The defence of local identities must not lead to self-centeredness and exclusivity, and local societies must not be encouraged to close their minds to outside influence in the name of a landscape-inspired cult for preserving one's territorial roots.

11. Europe's marvellous patchwork of landscapes must therefore be a resource for the future rather than a symbol of past inertia. Landscape policies must help to celebrate diversity and encourage a willingness to enter into dialogue and exchange ideas, and to accept a constant redefinition of the reference values that make up identity. The diversification of cultural policies and traditions at local and regional level cannot be allowed to mutate into isolation, separateness and a closing of minds.

12. These objectives will not be achieved in full if landscape protection activities are simply confined to areas that a small circle of experts, however well qualified, have declared to be of exceptional value. All European citizens are entitled to a high quality landscape, not just those who have the means to inhabit or frequent areas of outstanding natural beauty. Landscapes must be democratised so that even ones that are ordinary or damaged and have never been deemed worthy of special status or protection can be preserved. Every citizens has a right to establish a special relationship with his or her territory and benefit from it physically and spiritually, and to take part in decisions that affect such an integral aspect of this relationship, the landscape itself.

13. The Congress's commitment to the adoption and implementation of a European convention entirely and exclusively devoted to landscape was a political response to all these issues and concerns.

III. THE PRINCIPLES ADOPTED

14. The main principle underlying the European Landscape Convention is that landscapes are assets requiring legal protection irrespective of value. The Convention effectively recognises landscape as a legitimate interest that does not need to be ascribed a particular value in order to be protected. The practical consequence of this new and original legal concept is that it commits the authorities of states that have ratified the Convention to protecting their countries' landscape in its entirety and not just those parts that are rightly deemed to be outstanding.

15. Without going into specific details about each country's traditions and rules, the European Landscape Convention is designed to launch this process in places where it does not already exist and offers a frame of reference for public authorities, at whatever level, that wish to formulate and implement urban and land-use measures and policies in response to citizens' expectations about the landscape.

16. Naturally the types of activity undertaken to offer this legal protection will depend on the landscapes concerned. The Convention classifies intervention under three headings: protection, management and planning. These very clearly defined types of intervention should be applied individually or in combination, depending on the circumstances of the particular landscape.

17. Similarly, institutional responsibilities will vary according to the importance of a particular national landscape. International organisations, particularly European ones, and national authorities may identify certain landscapes as being of, respectively, international and national interest. In the absence of such recognition and the obligations stemming from it, and in accordance with the subsidiarity principle, local authorities should be responsible for protecting their own landscapes, subject to relevant national or regional policies.

18. In the case of ordinary or "everyday" landscapes local authorities must meet a series of obligations. The first requires them to take steps to raise people's awareness of the value of their surrounding landscape and the advantages and problems associated with it. Thereafter, those concerned will have the opportunity to express themselves publicly on the work of identifying and classifying local landscapes, which will be undertaken with the support of experts qualified in the relevant academic and scientific fields. Following this consultation process and bearing in mind the views expressed, the local authorities will introduce the appropriate protection, management and/or planning measures and the relevant tools.

19. Public involvement, in the form of a radical raising of their awareness of and active participation in landscape policies and measures, is clearly the keystone of the European Landscape Convention. Without this commitment the landscape would probably lose its main function and remain a shapeless image, leaving a general impression of degradation or else of an asset to which only a few have access.

IV. FUTURE ACTION

20. The Congress started work on a draft convention in 1994 and at first had to deal with reactions ranging from simple lack of interest, through barely disguised derision to open hostility. At the time the proposal to produce the outline of an international treaty on the landscape was considered impossible to fulfil. Now, ten years on, this lack of understanding is behind us and it might perhaps be claimed that the dream is about to become reality. The European Landscape Convention has finally offered the foundation for a general consensus on what constitutes a "landscape heritage".

21. Over the last ten years, no doubt as a consequence of its purely political objectives and its proximity to citizens' everyday needs, the Congress has managed to secure agreement on the landscape among all those concerned while avoiding interminable doctrinal disputes about the definition of landscape and whether it is the domain of the biologist, the ecologist or the nature conservationist, or exclusively the province of archaeologists, historians, cultural heritage conservators or whatever.

22. However excessive enthusiasm is still not in order. The Convention's adoption, opening for signature and entry into force in the states that have already ratified it by no means set the final seal on governments' landscape activities. The Congress is convinced that the work has barely started and that its completion is intimately bound up with the implementation of the political project of which the Convention is simply the authoritative legal expression.

23. The Congress's political project is undoubtedly an ambitious one, indeed some have even called it revolutionary. The terms are not unjustified, given that what is sought is a major shift in the relationship between citizens or the public and their local areas, based on the principles embodied in the Convention. For the project to succeed, the authorities must ensure that, like a liquid flowing through a complex structure, the Convention's principles penetrate the very innermost workings of society.

24. Without the co-operation of national, regional and local authorities, the liquid in question will remain in its exalted European container, where it will be put on display by a small number of particularly inspired or zealous politicians and officials. Yet this liquid is no magic potion, but simply a form of sap which, if it is to bring life, must be allowed to flow and become a resource accessible to all. This sap must course through the veins of the civil, administrative and institutional structures of the states that make up our continent. Based on the subsidiarity principle, it must reach the very roots of our complex society and inspire those who still treat their natural surroundings exclusively as a means of satisfying their own material interests rather than as an essential source of environmental balance, public health, sustainable development and spiritual development.

25. Clearly then national governments' first step must be to encourage ratification of the Convention. However, even more importantly they must as far as possible avoid taking positions for purely short-term electoral purposes that contravene the Convention's letter and spirit and put at risk the developing awareness of the landscape in the national community concerned.

26. Meanwhile the Congress will do everything in its power to alert local and regional authorities to the importance of their role. As part of this process it is already supporting the establishment of assistance and co-operation centres to help apply the Convention's principles at local and regional level. The Congress is convinced that with the Convention's entry into force, the time has come for local and regional authorities to assume their responsibilities under the Convention, in accordance with the subsidiarity principle in the European Charter of Local Self-Government.

V. THE CONTRIBUTION OF LOCAL AND REGIONAL AUTHORITIES

27. In most of the Council of Europe's member states direct responsibility for landscape matters lies with regions or local authorities, in the latter case sometimes as a regionally delegated responsibility. The Congress wants to help local and regional authorities to carry out these responsibilities in accordance with the principles of the Convention. Given the difficulty of the task, it is important that authorities should be able to exchange information in a spirit of co-operation and to their mutual benefit, and that their decisions should also be based on the knowledge and experience of the academic world and the voluntary sector.

28. The multidisciplinary nature of the information needed for the successful protection, management and planning of the landscape in accordance with Convention principles calls for the development of significant scientific and technical resources. It is clear that, despite their political commitment, many European local and regional authorities lack such resources. Some however do have access to them and in a spirit of transfrontier and inter-authority solidarity could share them with less developed areas, in consultation with the aforementioned bodies.

29. Such links will require a certain amount of co-ordination and organisation if the Convention is to be properly and fully applied, hence the need for a single European body responsible for helping local and regional authorities to combine their landscape knowledge and skills. The Congress has already offered its support to an initiative sponsored by the Italian Campania Region and Cilento e Vallo di Diano National Park aimed at establishing a European network of local and regional authorities for the application of the European Landscape Convention.

30. Article 1 of the 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" while according to Article 2 this definition is applied to "natural, rural, urban and peri-urban areas [including] land, inland water and marine areas". As far as their value is concerned, it covers "landscapes that might be considered outstanding as well as everyday or degraded landscapes". In accordance with this definition of landscape, the aforementioned network should cover all the territory of the member authorities. This is not merely for the sake of formal compliance with the Convention's fundamental principles but also because such a broadening of the concept can and must reflect the qualitative leap necessary if we are to identify the reasons for the crisis facing our landscape heritage and its degradation, and the most appropriate ways of responding to it.

31. The network would be placed under the aegis of the Congress and would offer regions and local authorities co-ordination, assistance and technical and scientific support in carrying out their landscape responsibilities in accordance with the principles of the Convention. To that end the Congress could adopt a resolution inviting territorial authorities of member States with direct or delegated landscape responsibilities (which means practically every authority in Europe) to join the network.

32. The network would serve as a link between authorities with landscape responsibilities and help them to clarify their activities. It would help to improve regional and local authorities' decision-making capacities in their respective spheres and in conjunction with central government, particularly in the areas of planning and authorisation procedures. The network should also be constantly aware of the need to educate the public and officials about the landscape, according to the provisions of the Convention.

33. The network should have an open structure accessible to all. The results of its work should be shared by the maximum number of local and regional authorities concerned in practical landscape protection/management/planning activities, in conjunction with relevant academic and voluntary organisations and bodies. It is essential to have a system that allows a wide-ranging exchange of experience between the various forms of territorial organisation in the signatory states to the Convention.

34. Bearing in mind the objectives referred to above, the network would be principally concerned with preparing documents on the identification and assessment of landscape units, setting landscape quality objectives and decisions concerning landscape protection/management/planning. Scientific support would involve data analysis, updating and processing and the development of scientific co-operation programmes concerned with comparison, evaluation and the dissemination of findings. These activities would be supplemented by programmes and projects for informing, educating and training those concerned in this field.

35. In addition to its scientific and technical aspects, the network could also serve as a forum for dialogue between the local and regional authorities concerned and help them to co-ordinate their landscape policies. By co-ordinating their own activities the authorities could also establish a more harmonious dialogue with central government. The principles of the Convention and citizens' democratically expressed preferences concerning their environment would serve as reference points for the network's political dimension. To assist its operations and ensure that it was readily identifiable and carried technical and political authority, the network should establish a certain number of political, technical and administrative organs, drawing partly on its own member organisations. The Congress should be represented at meetings of the network's organs.

36. The network would complement the intergovernmental activities already being undertaken by the Council of Europe committees of experts responsible for monitoring the application of the Convention (Article 10). By co-ordinating local and regional authorities' action on the ground the network should help to increase the effectiveness of governments' national and expert committees' intergovernmental activities. It could also contribute to the European co-operation envisaged in Chapter III of the Convention, particularly activities involving transfrontier co-operation. Similarly, it could publicise activities associated with the Council of Europe's Landscape Award (Article 11 of the Convention), an initiative which, in accordance with Congress proposals, is particularly aimed at territorial authorities. To achieve maximum complementarity of these activities at European level, the Congress is ready to supply the necessary co-ordination.

VI. THE ROLE OF THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE AND ITS INSTITUTIONS

37. Drawing on the proposals of local and regional elected representatives in the Congress, the Council of Europe has secured acceptance for a path-breaking international treaty concerned with cultural heritage and sustainable development. As such it has made its mark in an area of great current importance and in doing so has reaffirmed its origins and its underlying identity and values.

38. In order to send out a clear message to governments preparing to implement the European Landscape Convention, the Council must make it clear that from both environmental and cultural heritage standpoints monitoring the Convention is one of its priorities. It would therefore be regrettable if, after so much effort, the resources needed to implement the Convention were diverted to other initiatives that, while worthy of interest, might give governments the impression that the Council of Europe could not cope with its own success.

39. Following its opening for signature, the underlying philosophy and conception of the Convention, not to mention its texture and structure, were soon put to the test in the face of widely varying attitudes towards how landscape in Europe was perceived and how it should be protected and enhanced. It is therefore gratifying to discover that the Convention has already started to have an impact on the activities of the national, regional and local authorities directly concerned. It has stimulated research and an interchange of information, modifications to certain regulations, new legislation, changes to existing practice, and the framing and implementation of original new policies and related measures. Equally, the provisions of the Convention will have to be interpreted in the light of the needs expressed at different national levels, particularly the regional and local and ones.

40. This probably underlies national governments' requests to the Council of Europe, even before the Convention's entry into force, to establish arrangements and programmes to promote co-operation in this rapidly expanding field. The organisation of a Conference of Contracting and Signatory States to the European Landscape Convention was therefore very favourably received. The Congress was invited to the 2001 and 2002 conferences as an observer and followed their activities with great interest. The organisation of the Conference reflects the political success of the Convention and has helped to strengthen the Council of Europe's role and visibility in such internationally competitive sectors as sustainable development, quality of life, regional and spatial planning, cultural identity, the application of subsidiarity, transfrontier co-operation and decentralisation.

41. Having prepared the draft European landscape convention the Congress is now ready to co-operate with the Council of Europe expert committees set up to monitor its application. It could, for example, adopt a recommendation inviting the Committee of Ministers to ensure that the monitoring system established by the committees of experts under Article 10 of the Convention:

Without such a cross-disciplinary and flexible approach to institutional relations, the dynamic European process sought by the Convention could simply remain a dead letter.

42. If these conditions are met, the European Landscape Convention could become a living reality whose organs would continue to supply it with fresh energy and to which the Congress would be ready to contribute to the fullest possible extent. Respect for these principles would help to sustain the spiritual force of the landscape ideal that underlies the Florence Convention and is the source of and irreplaceable guide to success in all aspects of this field.

1 Situation at 07/04/2004