Terry O’Regan shares the keys points from the recent National Landscape Forum
Organised in a short timeframe to promote interest in and energise the implementation process for the recently launched National Landscape Strategy, the National Landscape Forum 2015 featured some 20 presentations and provided the key decision-makers with much food for thought.
Willie Cumming of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht (DAHG) opened proceedings with an overview of the content of the strategy noting its relationship to the European Landscape Convention, the objectives and proposed actions scheduled for delivery within a 10-year timeframe. Willie also integrated references through his presentation to the Europa Nostra award-winning project Survey of Historic Gardens & Designed Landscapes which is publicly accessible on the ‘buildings of Ireland’ website. (www.buildingsofireland.ie)
Conor Newman of the Heritage Council informed the meeting that the Heritage Council is currently examining how the work of the council might best be integrated with the NLS implementation strategy, and further information on its deliberations will emerge over the coming months.
Tony Williams of the Irish Landscape Institute (ILI) noted that the landscape institutes on both sides of the border in Ireland are progressing provisional plans for an independent landscape observatory modelled on the established and respected observatory in Catalonia.
For my own presentation, I stressed the need for the strategy to be actively implemented at all levels and called for a dedicated research, training and awareness unit in the DAHG and landscape officers at local authority level.
I also highlighted the need for a national landscape character map – to landscape character type level – to be produced within 12 months. More detailed characteristics being dealt with at the local authority level. Previous experience in Kosovo has shown that the landscape circle approach is an effective mechanism in this regard.
I concluded my talk highlighting that a national landscape action plan with landscape objectives and guidelines must be prepared and followed by similar plans at local authority level; there should be an annual state of our landscape report to monitor and report on progress in implementing the national landscape strategy; and finally, the openings created by the forum for collaboration with colleagues in Northern Ireland, England, Wales and
Scotland should be followed up and a joint working group established as soon as possible.
The morning sessions continued with Brendan O’Sullivan of the MPlan course in UCC, who reflected on how the landscape is challenged by the Irish love of one-off houses in the rural landscape and is safeguarded in varying degrees by the planning process. But he suggested that there is a need for a much more in-depth approach to landscape management and that the NLS could possibly facilitate the same if it is implemented effectively.
Brendan was followed by Linda Maher of the UCD Earth Institute who gave an overview of the different studies in progress on the landscape in UCD and specifically her own working-progress study on understanding and assessing the landscape setting of historical and landscape sites. Linda’s preliminary conclusion is that the value of many historical properties lies not just in the building and/or collection of buildings, but rather that their unique character derives from their relationship with the wider landscape.
Reflecting on the long-standing record of An Taisce in defending both our heritage and environment, Ian Lumley followed Linda’s presentation with a wide-ranging overview on the challenges and threats facing our landscape from both local and global forces for change. Ian saw the NLS as providing one potential framework to address some of those challenges.
Helen Lawless of Mountaineering Ireland then took us to the uplands and peaks of our landscape, convincingly noting that uplands (over 300m contour) only occupy 6% of the land area, with just 0.35% being over 600m. As they not only provide the best vantage points for viewing the wider landscape and are among the last remaining remote areas where stressed citizens might escape to, she advocated that they should have a special status within the framework of the NLS implementation process.
Tony Carey of Crann ‘Trees for Ireland’ then posed the question “Could Ireland benefit from a co-ordinated planting programme of selected tree species such that in 10-20 years the autumn colours along our roads and streets would begin to resemble those of New England?” Crann envisages a north/south study group being formed to carry out a feasibility study on the proposal.
Landscape Architect Aidan ffrench closed the morning session by taking us by the hand a landscape of the place, as distinct from the treasured iconic scenic landscapes of tourist brochures to ordinary places with the potential to become equally iconic and treasured if designed for the deeper human purpose and need. Aidan argued that a well-planned and managed landscape is an expression of faith in the future – a pact between generations.
“There should be an annual state of our landscape report to monitor and report on progress in implementing the national landscape strategy”
The afternoon session opened with an address by Jimmy Deenihan, Minister for Diaspora Affairs and up to last year Minister for Arts, Heritage & the Gaeltacht. He outlined his longstanding interest in and commitment to landscape policy and the European Landscape Convention, culminating in his work in the DAHG to advance the National Landscape Strategy.
Mansil Miller of the Northern Ireland Department of Environment then provided us with an overview of the current landscape strategy position in Northern Ireland. As such, they don’t have a landscape strategy but they do have quite an integrated approach, having completed a landscape character assessment some years ago which they are now about to update, focusing on landscape character types rather than areas. And they have a landscape charter which is open to all to commit to. Mansil also briefly referred to the seascape assessment work already in progress in NI.
Maggie Roe of Newcastle University and the Landscape Research Group provided the forum with a detailed and wide-reaching overview of landscape strategies and strategic thinking in England, taking us from the ELC to landscape partnership projects in Durham, Teesdale and Northumberland and on to green infrastructure planning. She noted that recent strategic activity has included a landscape advisory group established by Natural England in association with partners, and concluded her presentation by sharing with us the themes and questions that emerged from a symposium held earlier this year at Newcastle University under the proactive title “Landscape Forward: Policy, Practice & Research”.
Gareth Roberts, also of the Landscape Research Group, outlined the history of the evolution of interest in the Welsh landscape and recent developments in Wales. Christopher Gallagher, independent garden and landscape consultant, gave us a fascinating overview of Historic England’s Register of Parks & Gardens of special historic interest in England, established in 1983. Work on the register was accelerated by the destruction that accompanied the ‘Great Storm’ of 1987. 1,600 sites were assessed and graded, but there is no statutory protection, unlike listed buildings. Similar registers now exist in Wales, Scotland and NI and Christopher were also very involved with the process for the Survey of Historic Gardens & Designed Landscapes in Ireland referred to earlier.
Completing the shared outside perspective I outlined a presentation prepared by John Thomson, former Scottish Natural Heritage director on ‘Landscape Policy & Practice in a devolved Scotland’. This described the evolution of landscape policy and practice in recent years in Scotland and clearly demonstrated the extent by which many landscape issues and challenges are common in varying degrees to both islands. John’s presentation usefully concluded with a scorecard of the positives and negatives of the current situation which could as easily been written for Ireland.
In advance of the final presentations a much-needed if far too short open forum session took place when issues that had not been aired previously were given voice – issues such as concern re the proliferation of wind turbines on land and offshore, concern at the inadequacy of public consultation and engagement processes, lessons to be learned from more in-depth analysis of landscape issue than is provided for in current planning and development processes and so much more besides.
The final session brought us back to the local landscape with Dorothy Smith’s presentation on her community arts project in association with Phizzfest (Phibsborough Community Arts Festival) where she invited the local community to take photos of themselves in the context of issues in their locality that they would like to see addressed – effectively selfies of people and place. The response provided an overview of many serious issues regarding citizen safety and security in the public realm – an exercise of engaged democracy that also had an added value of people critically assessing their place and their living role within that place – a very effective landscape awareness-raising exercise.
Des Gunning, a life-long community activist in a narrative presentation, ‘Every journey begins with a single step’ took the forum on an odyssey through a diverse landscape beginning in the disappearing bogs, the tree-needy landscapes of Leitrim and Offaly, out to the exposed limestone landscape of the Aran Islands, back to the elevated realms of Belfield’s UCD, to talk of oak glens and landscape policies and forums. The Odyssey
continued in interlocking circles that returned to landscape strategies and forums in 2015.
The final presentation from Jim Cowman, another landscape forum veteran who explored the design and construction conundrums of public seats and other public realm furniture in Ireland, linking nicely back to Dorothy Smith’s unhappy citizens negotiating the default design hazards of the public realm. Jim highlighted the reality that in the landscape as in so much of the affairs of men and mice, the devil is in the detail or more pertinently in our continuing failure to recognise that managing our landscape requires people who know where they are going, know how they are going to get there and have the necessary knowledge, skills and wherewithal to undertake the journey in a responsible fashion.
MOVING FORWARD
This landscape forum demonstrated once again the breadth and depth of the topic of landscape and the challenges involved in committing to the realisation of the aims of the European Landscape Convention with regard to “landscape protection, management and planning, and … European co-operation on landscape issues”. The forum in a small way provided some signposts for the way forward and brought together some of the partners, players, and stakeholders who must be involved. The forum should have been over two or three days, speakers should have had more time, above all, there should have been more time for discussion and decision. Only so much could be achieved in eight hours, the forum once again might have punched above its weight – but patently there is an urgent body of work involved if the National Landscape Strategy is to deliver on its implied objectives. ✽
 TERRY O’REGAN is an acclaimed landscape architect and is one of Ireland’s most active landscape advocates. In addition to running his award-winning landscape company BHL Landscapes, Terry is also an author and industry commentator. For more information on his practice, visit www.bhllandscapes.com |
