The International Landscape Convention and Latin American Landscape Initiative
The sustainability of an urban environment can only be understood regarding the interaction of all natural, cultural and economic factors that integrate the urban landscape.
Therefore all urban processes occur in the Urban Landscape. This landscape approach (looking at the city like a living system with interactive complex functions), allows a holistic understanding of urban processes, which is the basis for sustainable planning and decision making.
The landscapes of daily life are constantly being eroded. Across the world communities are feeling the impact of industrialization, urbanization, the search for energy, demographic shifts and changing patterns of work and habitation, as well as climate change, the depletion of natural resources, de/forestation, problems relating to food production, biodiversity, heritage, a host of issues relating to the quality of life and other aspects of land use change and development.
Traditional approaches to transportation have contributed to the creation of suburban developments where greenhouse gas emissions, loss of greenery. Regular planning cannot guarantee the environmental quality of these new urban systems and open spaces.
Thinking differently about issues such as auto dependence, fuel sources, transportation, infrastructure, and land use planning is critical to find strategic solutions. The practice is at the forefront of working collaboratively to develop sustainable strategies for new and regenerating cities.
A Sustainable Urban Landscape integrates the concepts of sustainability, ecology, territory, sustainable management of resources, specially water, efficient (of) mobility (and waters), renewable energy, ecological footprint, environmental planning principles, culture and history of the city and of the territory, urban agriculture, etc.
Therefore the purpose for the International Landscape Convention and the Latin American Landscape Initiative stimulates a more integrated, democratic approach that establishes the landscape as a holistic tool for planning, managing and creating sustainable development.
Rather than being an enforceable tool, it was agreed that the convention should:
offer inspiration through principles and guidelines;
encourage work across established institutional, geographical and disciplinary boundaries;
provide leadership;
share and rewarding good practice; and
deal with the whole space, the rural and the urban, wilderness and man-made, the most valuable as well as the unloved and degraded
Recognising that different cultures have different ideas about the landscape, a convention will be comprehensive and overarching yet flexible, encouraging national, regional and local interpretation and application. The idea will empower communities and people who are concerned with economy, health, and sustainability of their culture and environment.
The urgent need for an international convention will capitalize on the intense interest in this proposal from across the world, and will give leadership, complement and reinforce the bottom up approach which has led to existing and proposed landscape charters in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay and Peru ( which have become a Latin-American initiative LALI), national charters in Australia and New Zealand, regional charters in The Mediterranean, West Africa, East Africa and South Africa, and the European Landscape Convention (signed by 39 nation states).
MEKONEN WUBE ERMED, 1 June 2012thank you for the topic. what is the use of landscape convention?
MARTHA FAJARDO from Colombia, 2 June 2012Dear MEKONEN WUBE ERMED, thank you very much for your question
A new global convention is being considered which could help protect the quality of our daily landscapes threatened by the growing need for energy, urbanization and industrialization. It has the potential to bring benefits to communities across the world by encouraging a more holistic approach to the physical environment.
Quality of the environment is vital to every society and an international convention would be useful in getting authorities to look at spaces as a whole.
Both developed and developing countries currently face a significant challenge in terms of urban design and planning: the management of emerging landscapes that have been generated by increasing mobility and unprecedented urban growth. Regular planning cannot guarantee the efficiency and environmental quality of these new urban systems and open spaces.
Traditional approaches to transportation have contributed to the creation of suburban developments where greenhouse gas emissions, loss of greenery. Thinking differently about issues such as auto dependence, fuel sources, transportation infrastructure, and land use planning is critical to finding strategic solutions. The practice is at the forefront of working collaboratively to develop sustainable strategies for new and regenerating cities.
Currently governance of landscape is fragmented but a global convention would encourage work across traditional planning and design offering principles and guidelines, it will encourage work across established institutional, geographical and disciplinary boundaries, provide leadership and reward good practice.
Considering the whole space, the towns and cities, the most treasured and memorable and as well as the unloved and degraded, it will help establish the landscape as a holistic tool for planning, managing and creating sustainable development.
The core benefits towards an International Landscape Convention are that it helps public policy:
Reinforce democracy, in that landscape belongs to everyone.
Promote co-responsibility, in that every member of civil society, every property owner, every user of land can influence landscape for good or ill.
Encourage localism, in that landscape; contributes to the formation of local cultures and local quality of life.
Secure a valuable economic resource, in that landscape protection, management and planning can contribute to job creation, as well as social, cultural, environmental and economic value.
Advance integration, in that landscape issues can provide the stimulus and framework for integrated policy-making and action affecting environmental change.
It in addition reinforces other conventions and existing instruments that relate to landscapes.
Especially it could encourage integration responding to the connectivity between cultural and biological diversity and promotes sustainable development and quality of life for people.
An international standard-setting convention on landscape is being considered and you can help us to make the plan reality...
MEKONEN WUBE ERMED, 3 June 2012Dear Martha, thank you very much indeed. You gave us a very nice explanation.i am now eager to know more about the topic. when we talk about landscape, it needs qualified multidisciplinary professional to make it feasible. In many area, we have a problem of qualified landscape profession which can understand and practice to keep our environment livable.As you said ,international standard is very important to have a common understanding about our universe. My point is how to educate people to maintain this standard ? how do we understand the word landscape? what is landscape planning? how we integrate landscape with other development,investment program ? we do have different culture on our environment? In some areas ,people worship trees, mountains,rivers etc which are part of the landscape. How do we integrate it?
Dear , i am happy to know and discuses on this issue. Thank you again for your nice topic and information.
MEKONEN WUBE ERMED, 3 June 2012DEAR MARTI, I HAVE ONE QUESTION IN MY MIND . WHAT WILL BE THE SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS IN LANDSCAPE CONSTRUCTION TO MINIMIZE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS ON URBAN ENVIRONMENT.
MEKONEN WUBE ERMED, 3 June 2012IN ORDER TO BENEFIT FROM LANDSCAPING PLANNING PRINCIPLE , ONE HAS TO KNOW THE BASIC ENVIRONMENT PLANNING PRINCIPLES. WHAT ARE THE MAJOR INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING PRINCIPLE?
DESIREE MARTINEZ, 5 June 2012Dear Mekonene Wube Ermed,
Landscape is a vast topic! Therefore an International Landscape Convention is only the beginning, a first step towards a holistic approach to sustainability. At the same time National and Regional Landscape Charters and Initiatives may contribute to generate more consciousness among people on landscape values and management.
The International Landscape Convention and the Latin American Landscape Initiative are statements on principles to develop, manage and conserve landscape and its values. A series of strategies and actions considering and contributing to enhance these landscape values have to perm into education, land use regulations, infrastructure planning and development….!
There is lots of work to do in many aspects, but in my personal opinion, the landscape approach is quite understandable for many people, since landscape is something we all are linked to, thus it is part of our identity!
Desiree Martínez, IFLA President