London Landscape Observer: Allotment holders in Hastings, Lives in a Landscape (radio programme) and the European Landscape Convention

The landscape is part of the land, as perceived by local people or visitors, which evolves through time as a result of being acted upon by natural forces and human beings. http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/heritage/Landscape/presentation_en.asp

Since the European Landscape Convention puts people at the heart of landscape policy formation, as genuine participants rather than passive consultees, it is worth listening to the BBC R4 programme Lives in a Landscape, to see how people use their landscape, and/or how the landscape helps forge them, its centrality to their lives http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006rcd7

Podcast http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/lial
I was particularly interested by the tales of allotment holders. The rent a small piece of land from local government for a very cheap rent, to grow mainly vegetables and fruit. The community and activity of cultivation provides them with emotional support more valuable than vegetables alone

Lives: 24 Oct 12 The Allotment

Thu, 25 Oct 12

Duration:
28 mins

Alan Dein visits a Hastings allotment and finds that a plot of land means a lot more to people than a place to grow vegetables. He joins various allotmenteers as they tend their plot and hears how differently they use it. A young family have created a haven where the children learn about nature; a teacher who tended the land as a means of combatting depression and two friends meet under a full moon to await the wild original inhabitants of the allotment. Producers: Sarah Bowen and Neil McCarthy

Download 13MB

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/lial/lial_20121025-1204a.mp3

The European Landscape Convention

As a reflection of European identity and diversity, the landscape is our living natural and cultural heritage, be it ordinary or outstanding, urban or rural, on land or in water.

The European Landscape Convention - also known as the Florence Convention, - promotes the protection, management and planning of European landscapes and organises European co-operation on landscape issues. The convention was adopted on 20 October 2000 in Florence (Italy) and came into force on 1 March 2004 (Council of Europe Treaty Series no. 176). It is open for signature by member states of the Council of Europe and for accession by the European Community and European non-member states. It is the first international treaty to be exclusively concerned with all dimensions of European landscape. (more...)

About the Convention