BY DANIEL ELSEA

Ireland’s National Landscape Strategy makes clear the twining of land and national identity.

From the September 2015 issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine.

In May, Ireland unveiled a National Landscape Strategy (NLS), in an attempt to establish guidelines for the governance of the country’s historic geography while recognizing its inherent dynamism. Getting to grips with a nation’s landscape in such an ecumenical, broad-brushstrokes way is a tall order, even for a small island nation the size of Maine. Human settlement has left its mark on the Irish landscape for nearly 10,000 years. It’s an old place etched with memories, from the craggy coasts of Western Ireland to the karst of County Clare to the genteel Georgian terraces of Dublin.

These all now come under the protective purview of Ireland’s Department of Arts, Heritage, and Gaeltacht (the latter word referring to the Gaelic language). The agency has committed itself to a 10-year program to implement the NLS, with the completion of a comprehensive national Landscape Character Assessment (LCA) within five years. “It encompasses all landscapes—rural and urban, beautiful and degraded, ordinary and unique,” says Martin Colreavy, Ireland’s principal adviser on built heritage and architectural policy.

Ireland, of course, is a divided island, and the department’s remit extends to the boundaries of the Irish Republic—that is, the three historic southern provinces. The fourth province to the north—what we call Northern Ireland—remains part of the United Kingdom. The Northern Ireland Environment Agency has drawn up its own “Landscape Charter,” which will complement this one, reminding us that politics is often a land-based proposition.

If boundaries define landscapes, then landscapes define identity. As the NLS indicates, this is Ireland living up to its European obligations as a signatory of the European Landscape Convention, ratified by the Council of Europe in 2004, a document that calls on each European country to provide legal recognition of the landscape and to draw up policies for the stewardship of the landscape. Ireland’s NLS is contemporary in its ambitions, stating that from here on the country will “support a living landscape and strengthen community identity.” In a globalizing world where built environments are often increasingly homogenized, this emphasis on the land as a fountain of identity is compelling.

The European Convention marked an important step for the continent, considering its diversity and size. The accord affirms the landscape as fundamental to cultural heritage, elevating the status of landscape as a first-tier consideration in development and planning policies and establishing a definition of landscape: “an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors.” The European Convention opens with three key principles of a landscape’s value. Two of these say it’s good for us (for our well-being and health), but the third says a landscape reflects our cultural identity—something that is not just around us; it is us.

Ireland’s NLS outlines six core objectives. First is the recognition of landscapes in law. This means, as the strategy states, that “landscape is recognized as an explicit factor in decision making” throughout a raft of legislation, especially that which deals with built and natural environments.

Second, there is the extensive mapping exercise, the LCA, to undertake. This is a tool that will objectively enable a judgment of the character of any given piece of land in the country. Underpinning it will be a nationwide GIS database that monitors soils, water catchment, bio- and ecodiversity, land cover, land use, and habitats, and establishes consistent standards of analysis and nomenclature. These will inform a nationwide landscape character map that will identify areas of interest, the protection and stewardship of which will be governed by new regulations, which will be adopted within the next 10 years.

Then there is a call to develop what are called “national landscape policies,” loosely defined as covering areas of “protection, management, and planning.” To monitor these, there will be a periodic “State of the Landscape” report that will record the landscape’s evolution and provide a snapshot in time of its quality and direction.

The other three objectives deal with the public: raising landscape’s profile with an awareness campaign, identifying education and training needs, and strengthening public participation in the landscape design and planning process. A series of specific measures include actions such as listing landscapes in the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, developing more higher education programs in landscape architecture, and introducing landscape into primary and secondary education.

More than anything, the NLS seems to represent a belief that the general public needs to know that landscape is more than a backdrop, that it is a living piece of Ireland’s history.

As always, you can buy this issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine at more than 200 bookstores, including many university stores and independents, as well as at Barnes & Noble. You can also buy single digital issues for only $5.25 at Zinio or order single copies of the print issue from ASLA. Annual subscriptions for LAM are a thrifty $59 for print and $44.25 for digital. Our subscription page has more information on subscription options.