**From Landscape Preservation to Landscape Governance: European Experiences with Sustainable Development of Protected Landscapes**

Joks Janssen1 and Luuk Knippenberg2

*1Land Use Planning Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, 2Centre for International Development Issues, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands* 

#### **1. Introduction**

240 Studies on Environmental and Applied Geomorphology

Zhang, W. and Montgomery, D, 1994, Digital elevation model grid size, landscape

1028.

representation, and hydrologic simulations. *Water Resources Research*, 30, pp. 1019–

Over the last two decades there has been a significant increase in the appreciation of the cultural landscape by the public and by politicians; this phenomenon is taking place in most European countries. In 1992 the importance of cultural landscapes was recognized on an international scale with their inclusion in the World Heritage Convention. Eight years later, in 2000, the Council of Europe adopted a European Landscape Convention (ELC) and presented it to member states for adoption. Through innovations such as the World Heritage Convention and the European Landscape Convention, cultural landscape has become increasingly central to matters of sustainability and place-making across both urban and rural realms. As a consequence, the thinking on protected areas has undergone a fundamental shift. Cultural landscapes are at the interface of nature and culture. Therefore, both natural and cultural resource conservation converge, creating opportunities for collaboration.

In Europe, the approach to protecting landscapes has generally been one of 'designation', that is, drawing lines round areas valued by experts. The 'designation' approach, however, has come under criticism for a number of reasons, not least the growing realization that neither the ecologic and geomorphologic nor the axiological and aesthetic aspects of landscapes can be safeguarded in the long term on the basis of corralling stand-alone sites. Modern aesthetic, geomorphologic and ecologic objectives rely on a site-in-context approach based on a concern for visual, morphologic coherence and ecological connectivity across the wider countryside. Whereas protected areas were once planned against people, now it is recognised that they need to be planned with local people, and often for and by them as well. Instead of setting landscapes aside by 'designation', nature and landscape conservationists now look to develop linkages between strictly protected core areas and the areas around: economic links which benefit local people, and physical links, for instance via ecological corridors, to provide more space for species and natural processes. As a result, landscape conservation of continuously evolving landscapes is about the management of change – the landscape should not become frozen but kept alive (Bloemers et al., 2010).The

From Landscape Preservation to Landscape Governance:

planning tradition aimed at handling cultural landscapes.

the achievement of national policy objectives in countryside areas.

and needs of an urban population.

European Experiences with Sustainable Development of Protected Landscapes 243

society and nature, and the unfolding of new vectors for regulating socio-economic, cultural and environmental change. In this chapter some European experiences with landscape protection are described and analyzed. On the basis of English-language literature this chapter examines the western European experience with landscape conservation as well as the related governance issues, shifting from 'preservation by designation' to 'conservation through development'. We trace the different conservation attitudes in Western Europe, as well as the subsequent conservation systems that have been created for sustaining cultural landscapes. We focus on Britain, France, and Germany, because of the long history of preserved landscapes in these countries and the relatively large areas of protected landscapes that are managed for recreational, scenic, educational, and heritage purposes.1 Furthermore, Britain, France and Germany are European nations with a strong spatial

The core dilemma of protected landscapes in Britain, France, and Germany, is that they are no longer self-sustaining, and the links between landscape, community and economy no longer self-reinforcing. Thus, the key issue for the future is what policy settings are needed to ensure their survival in the face of environmental and cultural homogenization, as part of the general process of globalization. In order to answer this question we discuss the different governance strategies that are developed to re-couple socio-economic activity and landscape quality in these protected landscapes. More and more, these strategies are coproductions of public and private effort. This is a result of an ongoing shift in the above mentioned state-society relations ('from government to governance') away from a top-down approach towards more bottom-up approaches characterised by a decentralised style of policy making that also stimulates the horizontal relations between public and private bodies. Competencies are devolved to the regional level to allow for policy differentiation and an administrative imperative to manage and control the public policy process to ensure

The general aim of this chapter is to contribute to the recently started debate on sustainable development of protected areas by comparing and assessing the different governance strategies in British, French and German protected landscapes. This chapter starts with a short introduction of the history and international context of landscape protection, determining the particular western European experience with landscape preservation and management. This brings us to the different landscape protection systems and strategies adopted by Britain, France and Germany. We describe the identification and maintenance of protected landscapes in these highly urbanized countries and analyze the forces that have shaped them as well as the forces that are currently affecting the ecology and beauty of these valued landscapes. Based on the comparison of the different protected landscapes, we observe that attention for the potential of protected landscapes to stimulate sustainable development is increasing. Despite the ubiquity of 'sustainability' as a concept, within protected landscapes several attempts are made to protect the environment, to promote sound development and to improve the quality of life for people now and in the future. In

1 English geographer Aitchison (1995) has shown that the regions with the most intensive agriculture, coinciding with the urbanised economic core region of Europe, are also the nations with the largest perecentages of protected landscapes. It suggests that the protection of landscapes is less based on biodiversity or on the degree of preservation of 'traditional agrarian landscapes', as it is on the values

people that live and work in landscapes, be it farmers, residents or entrepreneurs, have to be actively involved in formulating conservation plans, collective decision-making and the performance of landscape management measures.

It is now recognized that protected landscapes (IUCN Category V Protected Landscape/Seascape) and cultural landscapes share much common ground: both are focused on landscapes where human relationships with the biotic and abiotic natural environment over time define their essential character. They can help to conserve both wild biodiversity and agricultural biodiversity, and to conserve human (cultural) history alongside the geomorphologic past (Reynard, 2005; Panizza 2009; Farsani, Coelho and Costa, 2011). Against this background, protected landscapes throughout Western Europe more and more function as flagships for a new and integrated urban-rural public policy. Since landscape conservation and environmental government are aspects of a single whole, conservation, increasingly is seen as an integral part of sustainable management. This is highlighted by a range of protected landscapes in Western Europe, which, since the 1990s, strive towards a regional integration of agriculture, nature and landscape, thereby overcoming the often strong sectoral division of countryside and town planning and natural and cultural resource management.

The adopted approaches for protected landscapes in Europe increasingly recognise the critical links between nature, culture, and community for a long-term sustainable development. Landscape management plans and projects seek to support a 'virtuous circle' in which the socio-economy of a region contributes to nature and beauty, and the environment underpins community and prosperity of the protected landscape (Powell et all, 2000; Selman, 2006). Knowledge about the spatial-temporal aspects of the metabolism between nature and society is needed in order to support this 'virtuous circle'. It is precisely the hybrid character of landscape, that is, that societal and "natural" factors are intrinsically linked to one another that ensure that cultural, aesthetic, economic and social dimensions are as much involved as ecological functioning or abiotic, morphological conditions. Landscape, as a realm of this hybrid human-environmental interaction, is at the centre of sustainability and sustainable development (Wascher, 2000; Reynard and Panizza, 2005).

The re-positioning of cultural landscape within the sustainable development agenda is opening up new challenges for landscape governance. The term landscape governance reflects two contemporary, interrelated changes in the scale and organisation of decisionmaking about the landscape (Beunen & Opdam, 2011). Government power is decentralized to the lower tiers of command, while a growing number of private parties and citizens begin to actively participate in decision-making. As a result, the term governance has been introduced in the field of protected areas and the term 'protected area governance' has recently been established (Borrini-Feyerabend, 2004; Dearden & Bennett, 2005; Fürst et al. 2006, Stoll-Kleemann et. al., 2006). A cornerstone was the Vth IUCN World Parks Congress in Durban 2003; since then the topic of governance has also been applied to different categories of protected areas, including protected landscapes and, more recently, so-called Geoparks. However, a scientific discussion concerning governance in protected landscapes is still missing.

European landscape conservation is a practice in the making, continuously evolving because of changing political and institutional contexts, new insights in the dynamic relation of

people that live and work in landscapes, be it farmers, residents or entrepreneurs, have to be actively involved in formulating conservation plans, collective decision-making and the

It is now recognized that protected landscapes (IUCN Category V Protected Landscape/Seascape) and cultural landscapes share much common ground: both are focused on landscapes where human relationships with the biotic and abiotic natural environment over time define their essential character. They can help to conserve both wild biodiversity and agricultural biodiversity, and to conserve human (cultural) history alongside the geomorphologic past (Reynard, 2005; Panizza 2009; Farsani, Coelho and Costa, 2011). Against this background, protected landscapes throughout Western Europe more and more function as flagships for a new and integrated urban-rural public policy. Since landscape conservation and environmental government are aspects of a single whole, conservation, increasingly is seen as an integral part of sustainable management. This is highlighted by a range of protected landscapes in Western Europe, which, since the 1990s, strive towards a regional integration of agriculture, nature and landscape, thereby overcoming the often strong sectoral division of countryside and town planning and natural

The adopted approaches for protected landscapes in Europe increasingly recognise the critical links between nature, culture, and community for a long-term sustainable development. Landscape management plans and projects seek to support a 'virtuous circle' in which the socio-economy of a region contributes to nature and beauty, and the environment underpins community and prosperity of the protected landscape (Powell et all, 2000; Selman, 2006). Knowledge about the spatial-temporal aspects of the metabolism between nature and society is needed in order to support this 'virtuous circle'. It is precisely the hybrid character of landscape, that is, that societal and "natural" factors are intrinsically linked to one another that ensure that cultural, aesthetic, economic and social dimensions are as much involved as ecological functioning or abiotic, morphological conditions. Landscape, as a realm of this hybrid human-environmental interaction, is at the centre of sustainability and sustainable development (Wascher, 2000; Reynard and Panizza, 2005).

The re-positioning of cultural landscape within the sustainable development agenda is opening up new challenges for landscape governance. The term landscape governance reflects two contemporary, interrelated changes in the scale and organisation of decisionmaking about the landscape (Beunen & Opdam, 2011). Government power is decentralized to the lower tiers of command, while a growing number of private parties and citizens begin to actively participate in decision-making. As a result, the term governance has been introduced in the field of protected areas and the term 'protected area governance' has recently been established (Borrini-Feyerabend, 2004; Dearden & Bennett, 2005; Fürst et al. 2006, Stoll-Kleemann et. al., 2006). A cornerstone was the Vth IUCN World Parks Congress in Durban 2003; since then the topic of governance has also been applied to different categories of protected areas, including protected landscapes and, more recently, so-called Geoparks. However, a scientific discussion concerning governance in protected landscapes

European landscape conservation is a practice in the making, continuously evolving because of changing political and institutional contexts, new insights in the dynamic relation of

performance of landscape management measures.

and cultural resource management.

is still missing.

society and nature, and the unfolding of new vectors for regulating socio-economic, cultural and environmental change. In this chapter some European experiences with landscape protection are described and analyzed. On the basis of English-language literature this chapter examines the western European experience with landscape conservation as well as the related governance issues, shifting from 'preservation by designation' to 'conservation through development'. We trace the different conservation attitudes in Western Europe, as well as the subsequent conservation systems that have been created for sustaining cultural landscapes. We focus on Britain, France, and Germany, because of the long history of preserved landscapes in these countries and the relatively large areas of protected landscapes that are managed for recreational, scenic, educational, and heritage purposes.1 Furthermore, Britain, France and Germany are European nations with a strong spatial planning tradition aimed at handling cultural landscapes.

The core dilemma of protected landscapes in Britain, France, and Germany, is that they are no longer self-sustaining, and the links between landscape, community and economy no longer self-reinforcing. Thus, the key issue for the future is what policy settings are needed to ensure their survival in the face of environmental and cultural homogenization, as part of the general process of globalization. In order to answer this question we discuss the different governance strategies that are developed to re-couple socio-economic activity and landscape quality in these protected landscapes. More and more, these strategies are coproductions of public and private effort. This is a result of an ongoing shift in the above mentioned state-society relations ('from government to governance') away from a top-down approach towards more bottom-up approaches characterised by a decentralised style of policy making that also stimulates the horizontal relations between public and private bodies. Competencies are devolved to the regional level to allow for policy differentiation and an administrative imperative to manage and control the public policy process to ensure the achievement of national policy objectives in countryside areas.

The general aim of this chapter is to contribute to the recently started debate on sustainable development of protected areas by comparing and assessing the different governance strategies in British, French and German protected landscapes. This chapter starts with a short introduction of the history and international context of landscape protection, determining the particular western European experience with landscape preservation and management. This brings us to the different landscape protection systems and strategies adopted by Britain, France and Germany. We describe the identification and maintenance of protected landscapes in these highly urbanized countries and analyze the forces that have shaped them as well as the forces that are currently affecting the ecology and beauty of these valued landscapes. Based on the comparison of the different protected landscapes, we observe that attention for the potential of protected landscapes to stimulate sustainable development is increasing. Despite the ubiquity of 'sustainability' as a concept, within protected landscapes several attempts are made to protect the environment, to promote sound development and to improve the quality of life for people now and in the future. In

<sup>1</sup> English geographer Aitchison (1995) has shown that the regions with the most intensive agriculture, coinciding with the urbanised economic core region of Europe, are also the nations with the largest perecentages of protected landscapes. It suggests that the protection of landscapes is less based on biodiversity or on the degree of preservation of 'traditional agrarian landscapes', as it is on the values and needs of an urban population.

From Landscape Preservation to Landscape Governance:

Hunziker & Kienast, 2007; Panizza, 2001; Farsani, 2011).

experts and practitioners in geological heritage.

**3. Western European approaches to landscape conservation** 

Throughout Western Europe more and more landscapes are maintained with the specific aim of preserving the cultural landscape regarded as valuable by the (urban) society. These protected landscapes (Category V) seem to be best supported by sustainable policy

2 The Geoparks in Europe are part of a European Geoparks Network that was established in June 2000 and now consists of 37 Geoparks in 15 countries of the European Union. In February 2004 the European Geoparks Network was formally integrated into the UNESCO-endorsed Global Geoparks Network. The Global Geoparks Network, assisted by UNESCO, provides a platform of active co-operation between

European Experiences with Sustainable Development of Protected Landscapes 245

variety of actors like government agencies, local communities, non-governmental

Although the officially designated landscapes in Western Europe are often called national or regional parks they are, according to international guidelines by IUCN (World Conservation Union/International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) defined as Category V protected areas. IUCN (1994) defines protected landscapes (Category V) as "areas of land, with coast or sea as appropriate, where the interaction of people and nature over time has produced an area of distinct character with significant aesthetic, ecological and/or cultural value, and often with high biological diversity". Category V areas represent only some 9% of protected areas globally (6% by area). But in Europe, the UNEP-WCMC database records that

The disparity of landscapes that fall into Category V is substantial. The classifications according to national law include, for instance, *Parco Naturale Regionale* (Italy), *Parc Naturel Régionaux* (France), *Naturpark* (Austria and Germany), and *National Park* (Britain). Recently, so-called *Geoparks* have been established in different European countries, with the specific objective to protect geological heritage.2 The perspectives of geological heritage conservation of Geoparks are positioned within the frame of the wider and more complex strategy of conservation of the natural and historical-cultural heritage that the territory presents, acting through efficient management measures able to couple strategies of active protection with actions aiming at the enhancement and the social-economical development, including geotourism. Both Nature and Geoparks are a specific type of category V areas. They are protected landscape areas, which have developed trough the interaction of man with nature. Unlike the term 'nature' suggests, 'nature parks' are not managed for nature and biodiversity purposes but for landscape conservation and recreation. Recreation and amenity oriented purposes, but also culture and rural development, therefore, are mostly dominant over the pursuit of nature conservation. Currently nature parks get worldwide attention under the IUCN protected areas category V (see Table 2). They experience attention due to their increasing attractiveness as areas of leisure and valuable habitats as well as their less strict guidelines and planning objectives. Due to their central task to connect protection and the use of cultural landscapes lastingly they are gaining significance for the future. Only on the basis of continued use the cultural and geological heritage landscapes in Europe and their large biodiversity can be secured in the long term (Schenk;

organizations (particularly environmental groups) or private landowners.

some 46% of the total area under protection is in Category V (Chape et al, 2003).

the final section, some preliminary conclusions are drawn, and some remarks are given on the future of protected landscapes in Western Europe in a governance context.
