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Abstract
In 2003 wind power arrived massively in the Beauce (on the outskirts of the Parisian basin). This article follows the evolving practice of landscape planning over the course of wind power development in this region of France. Our analysis suggests that landscape is regulated through practices, discourses and aesthetic codes, which define what is important about landscape and attempt to protect it. It shows that wind power not only affects existing landscapes, but also challenges the working of these underlying practices and discourses, triggering the emergence of new codes. By calling for a renewal in the way in which we regulate and experience our landscapes, wind power enables us better to understand the way in which the energy transition might raise issues about landscape protection.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the French Ministry for the Environment (MEDDAD—Program PDD ‘Paysage et Développement Durable’), the Conseil Français de l’Energie, the French Agency for the Environment and the Energy (ADEME) (Convention 07 10 C 0019), the Region Ile-de-France and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS—Programme Interdisciplinaire pour l’Energie) for their financial support of this research.
Notes
1. The term ‘Sensible’ is used in the English translations and analyses of Rancière’s work (Highmore, Citation2011; Sayers, Citation2011). In order to make clear that the term is an idea borrowed from Rancière and not another meaning of the adjective ‘sensible’, we initial capitalise it. For an application of Rancière’s concepts to landscape process and planning, see Labussière, (2009).
2. The terms ‘inclusive’ and ’exclusive’ are derived from the English translation of Rancière (Highmore, Citation2011; Sayers, Citation2011).
3. Landscape Advisor, Diren Centre, 6 March 2008.
4. Law of 21 April 1906, put into final draft in the law of 2 May 1930, today codified in the articles L. 341-1 à 22 of the Code de l’Environnement. The 1930 law is usually referred to as being in the tradition of ‘monumental landscape’: it extended to landscape a type of protection that was already in place for monuments, thus implicitly ‘valuing’ landscape as if it was part of the French monument heritage.
5. For a detailed analysis, see Barraqué (Citation1985) on the emergence of a landscape administration.
6. Interview with the Aveyron SDAP, 14 December 2006.
7. Or déconcentration in French, meaning that, though still under state control, it is approached from the periphery, closer to the local level.
8. The Ministry has a veto power on projects if these are located within a perimeter of 500 m around the heritage site. Otherwise, its advice is only consultatory.
9. Interview with the Diren Centre, 2006.
10. Diren Centre, 23 November 2005, technical advice about the PC 16 00 500 005 (Francourville).
11. Analysis of administrative notifications, 34 wind power projects between 2003 and 2006, based on the construction permits files made available by the Eure & Loir DDE.
12. Title of the 21 September 2005 issue of the local newspaper La République du Centre on the day of the erection of turbines in the wind farm at Bonneval, 30 kilometres from Chartres.
13. Interview with the state landscape advisor, Region Centre, 6 March 2008.
14. Analysis of administrative notifications between 2003 and 2006 (see above).
15. Diren Centre, 24 March 2005, technical advice.
16. Interview with the Diren Centre civil servant, 6 March 2008.
17. Interview with the Diren Centre civil servant.
18. Interview with the Diren Centre civil servant. At the end of 2008, one local NGO (kiproko; http://www.kiproko.info/GoogleEarth/Beauce.htm) opposed wind power development in the Eure-et-Loir. We have not inquired into the absence of opposition to wind power in this case study. However, some interviews indicate that industrial agriculture and farmers dominate the local politics in village and that wind power was perceived by local mayors as part of the private business of industrial farmers.
19. Diren, 2005, p. 83.
20. Diren, 2005, p. 11.
21. Interview with the Diren Centre civil servant, 6 March 2008.
22. Interview with the Diren Centre civil servant, 6 March 2008.
23. Following the Diren Centre fieldwork, 16 May 2008.
24. Interview with the Diren Centre civil servant, 6 March 2008.
25. Interview with the Diren Centre civil servant, 6 March 2008.
26. Interview with the Diren Centre civil servant, 3 October 2008.
27. DDE du Loiret (Janvier 2008) Développement éolien dans le Loiret. Les orientations de l’Etat. Vers la constitution de bassins éoliens, available at: http://www.loiret.equipement.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/annexe_cle13e2d2.pdf.
28. DDE du Loiret (Janvier 2008).
29. Interview with the Diren Centre civil servant, 6 March 2008. In this quotation, the officer employs an unusual, grammatically incorrect but intentional use of the adverb ‘au loin’ (meaning ‘faraway’) as a substantive to translate the perception that this landscape conveyed ‘a breathing effect’ (‘un effet de respiration’). This rhetorical form is not neutral. Nominalisation literally turns the experience of ‘breathing’ into a landscape element, which was later to be translated into an (unusual) planning category: the ‘breathing space’.
30. Statement quoted by La République du Centre, 10 July 2008.
31. Interview with the Diren Centre civil servant, 6 March 2008.
32. Interview with the Diren Centre civil servant, 6 March 2008.
33. Based on individual interviews by the authors in the 22 local environmental administrations during the autumn of 2006.