As a graduate of Environmental Sciences, with postgraduate qualifications in Town Planning and Environmental Impact Assessment, Paul’s interests have always centred on the wise and sustainable use of natural resources. An early career in town planning practice and education led him towards research specialisms in sustainable communities and environmental management. During the 1980s and 1990s, he became particularly interested in large scale landscape changes affecting the countryside, such as those associated with forestry, environmentally sensitive farming, water catchment, and land regeneration in areas of industrial transformation. This led him into the emerging discipline of `landscape ecology´ as a framework for understanding, designing and guiding large-scale land use change. As editor of the journal Landscape Research between 1993-2003, he developed a wide ranging interest in landscape issues of all kinds, from culture and art to ecology and informatics.
Paul’s current research focuses on rural cultural landscapes – where past, present and future values derive from close associations between people and land. I am particularly interested in future options for using land profitably, in ways that produce landscapes of ecological and cultural value.
Abstract:
Landscape is often the afterthought in development planning. If it is considered at all, it is often in the context of some token greening. However, landscape is a complex system which is fundamental to designing human futures. Key issues which need to be considered are:
landscape is not just ‘the view’. It is a complex interactive system which links rural and urban, earth and water, local and regional, people and nature; it delivers a range of goods and services essential to human life and wellbeing. A functional view of landscape needs to permeate urban and rural policy.
We are losing distinctive cultural landscapes and, despite improved efforts from planners and designers, places are becoming more alike. There is a growing problem of ‘pastiche’ in attempting to regain local distinctiveness. Cultural landscape requires functionality and legibility, and these have been driven historically as by-products of agricultural and urban development. New types of development, responding to pressing environmental and social needs, need to drive landscape character in new ways. Energy production, settlements and multifunctional land uses will be the creators of new cultural landscapes – even if these are unfamiliar and controversial, they may gain public acceptance and critical acclaim if they convey clear narratives of sustainable living.
Our towns and cities have been built on the principle of putting in the grey infrastructure first, often obliterating land and water systems. Now, we must recognise the equal claim of blue-green infrastructure, putting it in first where possible and retro-fitting it elsewhere. This cannot be achieved by making minor concessions to nature – it must be integral to the over-arching design. All of these require changes in knowledge and attitudes, as well as in engineering and architectural practices. Our future settlements need to sit graciously with the land, and landscape needs to be in there first, not last.
