Rhetoric and Reporting of Public Participation in Landscape Policy

Abstract

The involvement of the public in decision-making is established as a key feature of many planning policies. However, there is evidence from the literature of a prevailing gap between participation rhetoric on paper and participation at the operational level. We assess whether this is also the case with landscape policy and review landscape characterization and assessment initiatives in England, Norway, Slovakia and Malta, focusing on five dimensions of good practice: (i) scope of public participation, (ii) representativeness of those involved, (iii) timeliness of public involvement, (iv) extent to which participation is rendered comfortable and convenient for the public, and (v) eventual influence of public input on decisions. Reviewed reporting results indicate weaknesses in the implementation of public participation, with public involvement largely limited to consultation, with few efforts to ensure representativeness of participants, with predominantly late involvement of the public, and with limited influence of the public on outputs. Furthermore, few efforts appear to be made to facilitate participation for the public. Although the cases studied differ, none of them are fully satisfactory in relation to the European Landscape Convention's participatory targets. The reporting of public participation processes thus suggests that practices may fail to match the rhetoric.

Notes

Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters: http://www.unece.org/env/pp/treatytext.htm (last accessed: 27 May 2010).

There were other significant milestones, including, for example, adoption of the Mediterranean Landscape Charter in 1993. However, these three key events are deemed to have been of particular importance in altering policy approaches.

The designation of ‘protected landscapes’ had been included in the earlier categorization system, but this ‘rather confusingly … lumped together two separate ideas: (i) that of areas, “whose landscapes possess special aesthetic qualities which are the result of the interaction of man and the land” (IUCN 1978, p. 18), and (ii) those that are “primarily natural areas managed intensively by man for recreational and tourism use” (ibid)’ (Phillips, 2002, p. 7).

The national characterization exercise carried out in the case of Norway was expert-based, but the public was involved in the subsequent planning processes based on the exercise.

Wales has developed an independent LANDMAP system for landscape assessment and characterization.

Evaluations were carried out by the following authors: (i) Malta: Conrad and Cassar, (ii) UK: Conrad and Cassar, (iii) Norway: Jones and Eiter, (iv) Slovakia: Izakovicova and Barankova. The scoring framework was developed by Conrad and the final evaluation of all assigned scores was carried out by Conrad and Cassar. Overall analysis was led by Conrad, Cassar, Fazey, and Christie, with input from all other authors.