By Europarc Atlantic Isles (2009)
EAI Seminar Report

Protected landscapes and cities are interdependent. Protected areas provide valuable services for our urban population – ecological, recreational, economic – and the majority of people live in cities. It is from urban areas that visitor income originates. Many opt to live in high quality countryside and work in a nearby conurbation.

Increasingly we are being encouraged to see the borders between urban and rural, between protected and non-protected, as porous and reciprocal. The European Landscape Convention requires signatories – including the UK and Ireland – to think about how all landscapes need enhancing and celebrating; and to bring people into the foreground of that work. What does this mean in practice? How can protected landscapes work best with urban populations? How should they respond to major growth plans? What can we learn from Europe? These were some of the questions addressed in the seminar, which incorporated a visit to one of the places in Europe where they are most acutely being faced – Thames Gateway and the Kent Downs.

The event was aimed at advancing the application of the European Landscape Convention by Protected Landscape organisations which border major conurbations and interact with them.

Download a PDF of the report

Beyond boundaries – protected landscapes, cities and the European Landscape Convention (0.6MB)