1. Cherished landscape and
Landscape protection
Why do people value landscapes?
How do we protect what we cherish?

2. Cherishing the land
Why are some landscapes felt to be
special?

3. The different natures of personal
experience
• People both react to and interact with their
environment. These reactions and interactions
take many forms; physical, emotional,
intellectual, spiritual.
•
•
•
•
•
•
Exploitative
Recreational
Aesthetic
Spiritual
Rebellious
Protective

4. Exploitation
• There is a natural need to satisfy our
immediate requirements
– When we are hungry, we want food, we don’t
think too hard about where it came from.
– When we are cold, we want shelter and heat, and
the consequences of exhausting resources are a
low priority.
• Human beings in their fundamental nature are
exploitative. This is how they survive.
• The challenge is how to make this exploitation
sustainable.

5. Case study: How the first Europeans reacted to the
Redwood forests
• The largest living things on
Earth, ever
• Nearly the oldest, some are
only 2,000 years old
• Awe inspiring, beautiful, humbling
• Or just 1,000 cubic meters of prime lumber at
$100/m3

6. Forestry in British Columbia
• Virgin forest clearance still
underway in most countries
•
Forests are replanted, but you
cannot regain 2,000 years of land
evolution in a human life span

7. Response to landscape exploitation
• Yosemite National Park in the USA set up in 1890, as
the first national park in the world, specifically to
stop the uncontrolled exploitation of the timber
resources.
• The trees were deemed to have a human value
beyond their monetary worth.
– This is an unmeasurable value
– Many arguments in landscape management are based on
differing values, and you will have to develop and defend
your own.

8. Protected parks for human recreation or natural sanctuary?
Periyar Wildlife sanctuary, India
People aren’t allowed in at all
Yosemite National Park, USA
Heavily exploited for recreation

9. Landscape as a recreational resource
• Is recreation just playing games?
• Stopping, rebuilding and starting afresh?
• Why do we go somewhere else for recreation?
– A change of place leads to a change of pace?
• Is the movement of people from urban
population centres to rural recreational
locations “sustainable”

10. Impact of urban recreation on the
rural landscape
• Some people seek rural
solitude for personal recreation
• What happens if everybody
seeks it?

11. What is the aesthetic reaction to the landscape?
• Personal interpretation
• Spiritual interaction
• Just observation and recording

12. Personal Interpretation
• An artist's interpretation of a
landscape often tells more
about the artist than about
the landscape
• Complex, imaginary
landscapes are more self
portraits than topographic
images

13. Immersion, the
landscape becomes
the art itself

14. Observation and recording
There is a
desire to
record the
view of the
landscape to
possess it

15. Sacred spiritual landscapes
Croagh Patrick:
Ireland
Uluru:
Australia
Mount Kailas:
Tibet

16. How can we protect the
landscape?
Statutory and voluntary bodies which
aim to protect cherished landscapes

17. Exploitation vs. protection
• We have to exploit the landscape
– We need food, water, energy and building land, and that is
where it comes from
• How we exploit it and the timescales we plan for are the
questions YOU must address
– There are no simple answers
– Once something is gone, it is soon forgotten
– Once it is forgotten, it will never be retrieved
• How can we protect our landscapes?
• Should we protect them?
• Legal protection…

18. Government protection
• Natural England
http://www.natural england.gov.uk
• Scottish Natural Heritage
http://www.snh.gov.uk
• Natural Resources Wales
http://naturalresourceswales.gov.uk
• Northern Ireland Environment Agency
http://www.doeni.gov.uk/niea/
• National Parks of England, Scotland and
Wales
http://www.nationalparks.gov.uk

19. National Parks in Great Britain
• Established by law
• Run by National Park
Authorities with twin purposes
of
– conserving and enhancing the
natural beauty, wildlife and
cultural heritage
– providing opportunities for the
understanding and enjoyment of
the special qualities of the Park
by the public
Source National Parks
http://www.nationalparks.gov.uk

20. Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty
• Areas designated AONB
purely on basis of their
visual landscape beauty
• Managed by local
voluntary partnerships
and local authorities
• Lower level of
protection than a
National Park
Source National Association for AONBs
http://www.landscapesforlife,org,uk

21. Heritage Coasts
• Areas designated as
Heritage Coasts by
Natural England to
highlight their value
• This is a nonstatutory
designation
• Most Heritage
coasts exists within
AONBs or National
Parks

22. Sites of Special Scientific Interest: SSSI
Details of all sites available online at
http://www.magic.gov.uk

23. Other landscape conservation bodies
• Natural England
– Government agency
– Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) are
designated and protected by English nature
• World Wide Fund for Nature WWF: major
international charity
• Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust: example of
national charity
• Wildlife trusts: local private charities

24. National Trust
• A major national land and property owner
• It protects what it owns but may be
consulted about developments near NT
land, even if not on it
• Too much property to list on a single map
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk

25. Historical land
• English Heritage
– Government statutory body
• Royal Commission on the Ancient and
Historical Monuments of Scotland
• Royal Commission on the Ancient and
Historical Monuments of Wales
• Northern Ireland Environment Agency

26. English Heritage
• The Government's statutory adviser on the
historic environment.
• increase the understanding of the past
• conserve and enhance the historic
environment
• broaden access and appreciation of the heritage
• Works both through ownership and
through statutory powers, particularly
relating to listed and historic buildings and
structures

27. Summary
• Landscapes are protected in a variety of ways
in the UK
• Some protection is enshrined by act of
parliament
• Any protection can be over ridden by another
act of parliament
• Strongest form of protection comes from
private ownership, but is subject to the
desires of the owner.

28. Reading
• The great modern classic of landscape design:
– Ian McHarg 1969 (1992) Design with Nature John
Wiley
A supremely well written book which was one of
the earliest to address the importance of ecology
and surprisingly laid the foundations for the use of
computers in the visualisation and management
of the land