Reframing the relationships between people and place –Transitions leading to new landscapes
Bas Pedroli

transitions, visions, pathways, revitalisation, new landscapes

22 years ago, the European Landscape Convention saw the potential of a landscape perspective to con-tribute to a more sustainable relationship between society and environment based on the recognition of mutual co-dependency. Since 2000, new challenges and opportunities have entered the scene, inevitably changing the European landscape. Clear visions of future landscape are needed to allow for backcasting and to define landscape planning pathways to such a future. As such, landscape should be part of the solution, rather than the negative effect of the new challenges.

Summary: Since the opening for ratification of the Landscape Convention of the Council of Europe in 2000, new challenges and opportunities have entered the scene. Agricultural practices, climate change, food and energy security, migration, public health (e.g. pandemics), biodiversity loss and economic globalisation have impacted landscape much more vehemently in recent years than 20 years ago. Spatial transitions in these fields will inevitably lead to new landscapes, which calls for a reappreciation of the Landscape Convention. Future visioning of land use is present-ed as an essential means to develop a new culture of landscape-inclusive thinking, and define pathways to plausible futures. It appears to be difficult to envisage the small-scale multifunctional landscapes, which are preferred in the future by most of the stakeholders consulted, because of global market developments focused on profit maximisation. Three priority areas for proactive policymaking in a more sustainable way are addressed: 1. Making Europe a place for everyone; 2. Landscape as a mediator for societal and environ-mental challenges; 3. Landscape knowledge for better decisions and out-comes. This clearly calls for an Action Plan for the European Landscape.

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