Search

This paper is based on the findings of a research project dealing landscape heritage of the Loire valley (France). We question the position of the scientist facing what we’re calling here a ‘latent’ heritage. The first part of the paper provides a geo-historical contextualisation of the hydraulic works (groynes) intended to improve navigation (channeling). We focus on identifying and analyzing time references used over the different periods : before, during and after the initial development of the groynes and the channel. Then, we present the results of a survey work with local residents demonstrating their weak knowledge of this history by pointing out the paradoxes of their social representations of these objects. The perspective of a future controversy, we defend a position of research "based on landscape analysis" to deal with heritage and participation issues in order to debate the temporalities at work in the restoration policy of the Loire River.

This paper introduce the hypothesis that landscape is the principle of a new kind of governance, radically different from the prescriptive, voluntaristic and active way of usual ways of rulling and managing territories. More than a territorial project, Landscape governance should arouse critical and integratives (meta)projects. The paper deals with a research about the way great transport infrastructures of Likoto Eurometropolis have little by little generate aroud them non planned living spaces, that I call « urban plains ». I will show how those plains are more and more visibles, and perhaps become today a considered landscape, defended and appreciated by those who live in.

In the current context, which is characterized by a general need for territorial observation, landscape can be used both as an information source and as a support for public participation processes. Technical and political constraints are responsible for the different forms taken by the landscape observatories and for their limits. The paper first examines the approach of the landscape photographic observatories, generally only focused on the landscape for itself, with sometimes a real efficiency for the mobilisation of the local actors, but quite a poor valorisation of the landscape’s informative potential. Then two different experimentations using landscape as a tool for territorial observation and as a central information source are presented and analysed : the first one deals with the achievement of a territorial diagnosis in the Regional Nature Park of the Haut-Languedoc (2004-2008), as a preliminary step before the revision of its Chart. Still in its first stages, the second case study shows an attempt to combine a landscape-oriented approach and remote sensing data, and thus to produce spacialised informations about land-use, agrodiversity and biodiversity in western brazilian Amazonia (High-Solimoes).

Industries and large infrastructures have been seen as a source of development for decades. This idea is although put into test by opponents of such projects. This paper is looking at conflicts raising around wind farms’ projects in eastern Canada. First, we will describe the settlement of this renewable energy in the province of Quebec, trough four phases. By doing so, we try to demonstrate that the conflicts gave rise to new planning practices supported by public authorities. We shall underline changes noticeable in regard of more classic practices in landscape domain. We will then discuss the questions that still remain concerning experts knowledge and governance practices. To conclude, we will underline how research investing political dimensions of landscape combined to regional studies could offer an understanding of relationships between modern societies and productive activities.

The landscape is now part of local public policies, often displayed at the very heart of territorial projects. But the debate remains wide open when it comes to specifying what should be the use of “landscape" and to determine with which particular value, in order to legitimize the thematic of landscape in the building of the territorial project. This text is based on the observation that two notions are consistently associated with landscape: heritage and, more recently, common good. We propose to examine the effect of these notions on the contemporary discourses on landscape. The French usual practices and its legal framework tend to enclose landscape with a focus on heritage and, as such, emphasize a protection approach. The expression “common good” in association with those of heritage raises some questions: is it an equivalent of heritage, an easy option supported by the language mode, or a contribution to innovative reflection concerning the place of landscape in social debates and methods of intervention? Recapturing the theoretical frameworks of the reflection on the common good and its current distribution across the social and environmental sciences, this paper will try to illustrate how this reflection can help understand the role of landscape in those projects, looking especially on the issues of accessibility and negotiation.

Baseline landscapes play a part in the landscape governance. On the Mont Lozere, France, the institutions aim to preserve open landscapes, which are considered as baseline landscapes. In this paper, we analyse how the open landscape dynamics due to the evolution of farming practices impact the stakeholder interplay and weaken the local governance. Our results show that the evolution of baseline landscapes is a blind spot in the landscape governance. Baseline landscapes are used in the development project as a unifying element, considered as consensual and static. This masks the diversity of representations about baseline landscapes and their dynamics. This case study advocates for considering baseline landscapes as a subject of debate.