Implementing European Landscape Convention in the South Baltic Region

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Project name “LIFEscape” summarises the idea behind the project: landscape as essential for life, and well being of humans. South Baltic landscapes are a legacy of the Region’s rich natural and cultural history. They undergo changes together with the economic and demographic development of the region. While some these changes can be regarded as positive, others have a clearly negative impact on human well-being and the biodiversity (landscape fragmentation through linear structures, uncontrolled construction, not maintained vegetation, visual pollution through advertisement etc. etc.). This year was the 10th anniversary of adopting the European Landscape Convention (ELC). 27 countries, among them Poland, Lithuania, Sweden and Denmark, obliged themselves to acknowledge the importance of landscape in the legislation, raise public awareness of landscape problems and promote international cooperation in this field. Unfortunately, very little has happened ever since. Still, some countries have developed more effective methods for landscape planning and management than others, usually via a spatial planning system and/or voluntary measures. LIFEscape project joins forces of landscape planners - authorities and practitioners from the South Baltic region, who want to identify the successful methods and share this experience to protect and develop landscapes in their areas. Goal of LIFEscape project is the implementation of ELC postulates, i.e. intensive cross-border professional exchange and capacity building, awareness-raising and stakeholder participation. Several EU directives recommend stakeholder participation as the most effective means of landscape planning, however, most countries do not take full advantages of this approach. International group of LIFEscape experts will propose tools and methods on how to not only inform (the statutory procedure), but effectively involve stakeholders: inhabitants, authorities, entrepreneurs, developers, politicians, NGOs and young people in the ongoing spatial planning processes of their community. Proposed methods will be tested during actualisation of local spatial development /management plans in four pilot areas in PL, LT, SE and DK. Stakeholder involvement and raised awareness of landscape problems will enrich the plans and improve effectiveness of planning measures.The stakeholder involvement will be accompanied by an intensive awareness-raising campaign, containing questionnaires, social events, media coverage, educational measures and small investments in the landscape infrastructure. Durable outputs of the project will be a South Baltic Handbook on Participative Landscape Planning and a cross-border Forum of SB Outstanding Landscapes, being a permanent body lobbing and recommending concrete solutions for the implementation of the European Landscape Convention in the SB countries and beyond.

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