Update 6th August 2024

National Landscape Forum 2024 Tralee – Registration now open on Eventbrite

NLF 2024, an LAI initiative sponsored/supported by the National Built Heritage Service (DHLGH), Kerry County Council, Irish Landscape Institute, Bord Bia, MKO Environmental, Minogue Associates and supported by the Irish Planning Institute and Engineers Ireland convenes within the framework of Architecture Kerry 2024 in partnership with Kerry County Council to provide a forum to advance our National Landscape Strategy; deliver on our European Landscape Convention & EU EIA/SEA Directive obligations, get to grips with current landscape issues from ‘Urban Centre to Ocean Horizon’, build on, refine and structure existing knowledge, understanding and experience, guide creative, sustainable responses to the challenges of landscape change with sensitive, effective planning, development & management.

Registration is now open on Eventbrite, Registration fee – concession €50 or €120 for those who can recover cost as work expense. Special Rose Hotel event accommodation rates available until mid-August. CPD accreditation – ILI, IPI & EI accredited.
Click here to book now

Programme: 9.00 - 17.30 each day with over 20 presentations delivering local, national & international perspectives on landscape dynamics, relevance, change, protection, planning and management plus workshops, Q&A/open forum + local field studies.

Speakers: the impressive panel of speakers will include Jimmy Deenihan, under whose stewardship as Minister for Arts, Heritage & the Gaeltacht the National Landscape Strategy was prepared, Catherine Harry (Landscape & Sustainable Development Manager), Nature Scotland), Marina Conway, Forester & former CEO Western Forestry Co-op, Cathal O’Meara, Landscape Architect, Fiona Descoteaux, Foundation Lead, Leslie Foundation, Glaslough, Co. Monaghan, Michiel Purmer, Heritage & Landscape Specialist, Natuurmonumenten, Netherlands, Brendan O’Sullivan, Planning & Sustainable Development, UCC, Victoria MacCarthy,  Architectural Conservation Officer, Kerry CoCo, Lucy Taylor, Dinnseanchas Project Manager, Dr. Karen Ray, Planning & Sustainable Development, UCC, Professor Dan McCarthy, Waterloo University, Canada, Daniel Long, Tipperary Farmer & founder member of Greenfarmer Co-op, Dr. George Bishop, University of Galway with additional speakers to be confirmed.

Background: It is some 30 years since the ground-breaking National Landscape Forum first convened in the Industry Centre. UCD on the 21st June 1995 and there are still questions to be asked about our landscape – there have been some answers and actions if fragmented and uncoordinated. Borrowing from that 1995 seminal gathering and reflecting on some answers that have materialised in the interim, we might ask – “what is landscape, where is it, why are we discussing it, who owns it, who has a stake, who are the players, why did the EU insert landscape into EIA and SEA directives, why did the member states of the Council of Europe bother to work intensely for years drafting and launching the European Landscape Convention (ELC) in 2000, Why did our masters undertake to prepare a National Landscape Strategy (NLS) - consulting us not once but twice before launching a fully integrated, visionary, actions promised strategy in 2015, what answers have we to offer?”

The above Kerry view from Valentia looking out towards the Skelligs may seem an easy call when answering “what is landscape?”, it is however only a two-dimensional photograph of admittedly stunning scenery; to perceive it in terms of landscape you have to add in not just the soundtrack but rather a ‘sensory track’ and an historical backing track to explain the shape and shaping of this particular slice of landscape. You need data, story and a dynamic process that responds to physical landscape change, diverse perceptions and expectations.

That sweeping Kerry view might also prompt some harder questions today such as “Where can we fit a few wind turbines, a couple of solar farms and a tidal turbine or two?

The ELC and NLS do not as such provide easy or detailed answers to difficult landscape questions; they do however set out a road map that we might follow as we seek answers together!. To lift the fully integrated ELC and NLS off the printed page we need more than fragmented actions and vague ‘fairy dust’ references to the use of the convention and strategy as impact mitigation!

Ireland is blessed with a landscape rich in natural and cultural heritage - long captured in word and song and latterly our increasingly landscape-aware tourism commodification. But it was accessible academic studies such as ‘The Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape’, Aalen, Whelan & Stout (1997) where the theme of this year’s forum was initially explored in depth. The atlas explains the evolution and dynamics of Ireland’s landscape as exemplified by County Kerry, whose own landscape bounty is so generous that it risks the casual contempt of familiarity – almost a case of now you see it; now you don’t! Landscape is never static or frozen; changes arising from our activities can easily erode and degrade this foundation resource – the 1990’s witnessed a Europe-wide drive for an informed understanding of landscape to be integrated into all relevant legislation and decision-making to ensure sustainable landscape protection, planning & management, but the challenge of landscape change has not dissipated in any way: it has become even more formidable! The 1990’s drive delivered legislation at European and National level on landscape policy, strategy, research, awareness-raising, procedures and skills. But success in this exercise requires active incremental implementation with all players and stake-holders working together continuously to respond to change and maximise landscape as a resource/framework to facilitate achieving a sustainable quality of life balance between nature, culture, heritage, art & economic activity.

The forum will address current landscape-related issues and explore local initiatives. The objective is to build on, refine and structure existing landscape knowledge, understanding and experience, to guide creative and sustainable responses to inevitable landscape change with a sensitive and effective planning & development process in the best interests of our present and future landscape.

Present and future generations deserve a dynamic management framework that delivers answers and solutions to the challenge of landscape change! That is why the National Landscape Forum 2024 convenes this year at The Rose Hotel, Tralee, Co. Kerry on the 18/19 September. 

Update 9th May 2024

National Landscape Forum 2024 to convene in Tralee on 18/19th September

The year Landscape Alliance Ireland will convene National Landscape Forum 2024 at The Rose Hotel, Tralee, Co. Kerry on Wednesday/Thursday 18/19 September. The forum will build on the success of past LAI landscape forums (13 in all) particularly the highly successful NLF 2023 convened last September at Mount Congreve House & Gardens, Waterford – see the preceding update. The challenging theme this year is ‘Landscape - now you see it, now you don’t!’      

NLF 2024 is supported by the Department of Housing, Local Government & Heritage and the Irish Landscape Institute and convenes within the framework of Architecture Kerry 2024 in partnership with Kerry County Council to provide an open forum where civic society will advance our National Landscape Strategy (NLS) meeting our obligations under the European Landscape Convention 2000 (ELC) & legally-binding EU EIA/SEA Directives.  

Ireland is blessed with a landscape rich in natural and cultural heritage, a reality exemplified by the County of Kerry, whose landscape bounty is so generous that it is tempting to take such quality for granted; yet it can be so easily damaged and degraded when an informed understanding of landscape is not fully integrated into all relevant decision-making. Landscape in Kerry can verge on the sublime, but in common with all counties the Kerry landscape is diverse – sometimes not even perceived as landscape at all – its richness not always visually obvious. Thus we have legislation at European and National level delivering landscape policy, strategy, research, awareness-raising, processes and skills intended to ensure landscape protection, management and planning. Success in this exercise requires all players and stake-holders to work together continuously to maximise landscape as a resource/framework to facilitate achieving a sustainable quality of life balance between nature, culture, heritage, art & economic activity. 

The forum will address current landscape-related issues from ‘Urban Centre to Ocean Horizon’ and explore local initiatives. The objective is to build on, refine and structure existing landscape knowledge, understanding and experience, to guide creative and sustainable responses to inevitable landscape change with a sensitive and effective planning & development process in the best interests of our present and future landscape.

Programme: Wednesday & Thursday – 9.00 - 17.30 – registration, presentations, workshops, Q&A/open forum + local field studies (TBC); 

Speakers will present local, national and international perspectives on landscape dynamics, relevance, evolution/change, protection, planning and management.

All are welcome - Registration will open shortly on Eventbrite, advance registration will be essential. Accommodation: special Rose Hotel event rates available for a time (details will be on Eventbrite). CPD - accreditation is anticipated.         

Update 25th March 2024

National Landscape Forum 2023 issued ‘Red Alert’ on Landscape Strategy!

Had it been a gathering in the attractive setting of Waterford’s Mount Congreve House and Gardens of over 70 participants, 30 of whom electrified the room with their fascinatingly diverse presentations bridging the cultural/natural divide as only landscape can, the National Landscape Forum 2023 on the 28/29 September would have been a resounding success. But in reality it achieved far more than that!

Download the NLF 2023 Final Programme here

During the forum we sought feedback from the participants on their reaction to the proceedings and this yielded much food for thought as captured in a ‘Takes and Leaves’ report as did a survey on participants priorities with regard to the implementation of Ireland’s National Landscape Strategy as launched back in 2015 – the outcome of this survey will be of interest for those charged with delivering on the 6 objectives and 18 associated actions of this state website acknowledged ‘high-level’ strategy. 

Download the ‘Takes and Leaves’ report here

Download the NLF 2023 NLS Survey Outcome here

The successful local integration of the forum was reflected in the The Irish Landscape Institute 30th Anniversary Exhibition on view at the SETU Granary Campus, Merchants Quay, Waterford and the ‘landscape and art evening event on 27th at Waterford’s Gallery of Art – where a full house enjoyed presentations from artists, poets and wandering gardeners. To cap the NLF outreach, the sixth class pupils of Gaelscoil Philib Barún in Tramore exhibited a series of landscape images, providing a fascinating insight into how our next generation perceives landscape today.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of NLF 2023 is that it issued a red alert on the slow progress in implementing our National Landscape Strategy and the welcome participation of the Department of Housing, Local Government & Heritage hopefully marks a fresh, energetic resumption of well-resourced action.

The forum could not have taken place without a team of enthusiastic LAI volunteers, our wonderful speakers, the good people of the 2023 forum host - namely Waterford City and County and our generous sponsors including Bioregional Weaving Lab. Waterford, The Irish Landscape Institute, Waterford City & County Council, Bord Bia, Southern Regional Assembly & MKOS Planning & Environmental Consultants and. We cannot thank you all enough. As a result of the success of NLF 2023 the forum will continue to convene on an annual basis throughout the island of Ireland. 

Download the NLF 2023 Overview Report here

Update 18th August 2023

Register now for National Landscape Forum 2023

Registration is open for what promises to be the most integrated, ground-breaking Irish Landscape Forum in 28 years - the link is as follows: National Landscape Forum 2023 Tickets, Thu 28 Sep 2023 at 09:00 | Eventbrite

The forum featuring some 30 national, international and local speakers delivering excitingly diverse presentations will convene at Mount Congreve House & Gardens, Kilmeaden, Co. Waterford X91 PX05 on Thursday 28th and Friday 29th September a mere 15 minute drive from Waterford City - information on the venue is available on mountcongreve.com. There will be additional pre-forum events on Wednesday 27th including an early evening celebration of landscape in word, music, song and art at the Waterford Gallery of Art, 31/32 O’Connell Street.

The forum may well not alone change how you perceive landscape; it may even give rise to a blinker-busting shift in how the government perceives landscape.

Download the detailed 4 page draft programme here.

Update 3rd May 2023 (prepared by Terry O’Regan)

National Landscape Forum 2023

Venue: Mount Congreve, Kilmeaden, Co. Waterford X91 PX05 
Time: Thursday/Friday 28th & 29th September 2023

Our 12th National Landscape Forum has the broad theme of ‘Landscape Past; Landscape Future’ - we exclude ‘Landscape Present’ because today change as never before characterises our landscape. ‘Landscape Present’ is now a fluid meeting point between landscape past and future. The pace of landscape change almost paralyses us and even when we cry “stop & reflect” it’s often too late for effective corrective input, this, despite the fact that when managed creatively and sustainably, our natural/cultural landscape enriches our lives in so many ways; and conversely a degraded, ill-treated landscape inflicts irreparable harm on humans and all other species on the planet. The quality of our  shared landscape is decided by past actions & future plans – be they draft or in progress.

We in Ireland have been very adept at commodifying landscape as a leisure/tourism product best epitomised by the ‘Wild Atlantic Way’ and clones of same. But successful landscape commodification involves landscape ‘wear & tear’ heightening the need for active strategic landscape protection, management and planning.

Our management of the wider urban/rural /upland/coastal/water body landscape where the return might be less tangible than tourism income has been patchy and even irresponsible at times. The European Landscape Convention, Florence 2000 (ELC), featuring an integrated framework for landscape protection, planning and management almost passed us by – despite its representing the committed multidisciplinary preparatory work of Council of Europe member states, work continued with workshops and conferences including the 3rd workshop facilitated by LAI in Cork, 2005. Belatedly, Ireland prepared the National Landscape Strategy 2015-2025 (NLS). Regrettably the NLS, central to our implementation of the ELC and compliance with relevant EU directives to all intents and purposes stalled in 2018.

Under the aegis of the EPA valuable work is in progress on upgrading the fragmented landscape character assessment process, but all familiar with the European Landscape Convention and the NLS will know that LCA is but one part of the integrated range of actions required to deliver on the aims and objectives of both the ELC and NLS and vitally to enable full compliance with the relevant EU EIA and SEA Directives.  

This September, LAI in partnership with the local Waterford community, will gather all interested parties to constructively explore landscape evolution, legislation and management in Ireland and Europe, focusing on successful best practice; lessons from failed measures and missed opportunities - aiming to clearly identify the most effective strategic way forward. Presentations and discussions will range widely across how best to manage the landscape changes involved in how we as a responsible society respond to the implications of climate change, carbon sequestration, bio-diversity loss, water scarcity, cultural diversity, urban density, food security and more. Waterford with its sweeping ‘Mountains to the Sea/Rivers’ topography, rich urban/rural cultural landscape, dynamic creative ethos and already experiencing many of the above landscape challenges is the perfect setting for what promises to be a landmark forum.

All are welcome to participate. The forum rules as always apply – everyone’s point of view is entitled to be heard, respected and recorded during presentations, panel discussions & open forums. Registration fee will be as reasonable as funding provided permits. Those interested should contact terryjoregan@gmail.com for further information & future updates re forum details.       

  
Strategic Landscape Action will provide integrated, multi-disciplinary cultural & natural solutions; but only if we are actively invested in the process with the requisite resources and urgent energy!

Update 25th July 2022 (prepared by Terry O’Regan)

Call for a ‘State of Ireland’s Landscape Report 2024!’

Landscape Alliance Ireland continues to be active in promoting the case for effective landscape policy and practice in Ireland within the framework of the European Landscape Convention (ELC). Following the launch of the National Landscape Strategy 2015-2025 (NLS) we had envisaged participating constructively in the implementation process particularly in the areas of public awareness raising and community engagement. The state obviously has a vital role to play in implementing the NLS, but following a short initial burst of activity it seems to have lost its appetite for landscape with the strategy effectively grinding to a halt back in 2018.

We wrote to Minister Malcolm Noonan in March 2021 enquiring about reactivating the NLS. We were advised that the answer would be incorporated into the then upcoming ‘Heritage Ireland 2030’. Sadly that densely packed document fails to address the resourcing and reactivation of the NLS. Our government departments are becoming rather adept at preparing and publishing strategies and plans. They seem to have a difficulty with the follow-up steps – at least that is the case with the NLS – a strategy intended to fulfil our obligations under the European Landscape Convention, Florence 2000 (ELC) and more.

We have recently written again to Minister Noonan about reactivating the NLS, reminded him that landscape as envisaged in the ELC and NLS is a much ‘bigger picture’ than heritage landscapes per se, we await his reply.

There was significant enthusiastic public engagement in the 20 year process that resulted in the preparation and launch of the National Landscape Strategy; facilitated in part by Landscape Alliance Ireland and also by the Heritage Council, the Irish Landscape Institute and others.

Active citizenship is a delicate flower easily destroyed by careless state inaction and disinterest. Democracy suffers as a result.

During the Council of Europe Workshops that followed the launch of the ELC there was a very heated debate about how states that signed and ratified the convention might be monitored with regard to effective implementation. Delegates were anxious for the Council of Europe to undertake such a role, but they were advised that that was not feasible and that it was up to each state to undertake such monitoring within their own jurisdiction.

Ireland is in urgent need of a structured control mechanism to deal with the current inaction and to ensure a dynamic process in the future.

We are therefore issuing a call for a ‘State of Ireland’s Landscape Report’ to be prepared, published and updated every four years. All interested players and stakeholders are invited to join this call. A useful template for such a report is the EPA ‘State of the Environment in Ireland’ reports published every four years since 1996 which may not have solved all our environmental challenges, but they are clear incremental independent action-generating reports that measure our progress and most importantly focus attention on our environment on a consistent, integrated, informed basis. To provide the necessary driving force to get the NLS moving again, we urgently need a similar ‘State of Ireland’s Landscape’ report to be prepared and published no later than 2024. Such a report will not alone energise the NLS but will also provide a standard framework for updating Landscape Character Assessments prepared by local authorities. The first‘State of Ireland’s Landscape Report’ will be a significant undertaking that ideally should be overseen by the EPA. For a starting point all interested parties might read not alone the NLS and the ELC but also the ELC explanatory notes and ‘The Challenge of Change’ section of that ground-breaking 1997 publication ‘Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape’ by Fred Aalen, Kevin Whelan and Matthew Stout. There are other sources including the National Landscape Forum proceedings and two comprehensive Heritage Council conference proceedings.

Over coming months LAI will seek to establish if there is widespread interest in this proposal and if there are alternative options.

As a parallel initiative LAI will shortly publish a ‘Landscape & Planning’ timeline and invite those interested to convene their own local landscape for a as part of a year-long open National Landscape Forum focussed on identifying where the legislation and associated measures have to date contributed to good landscape management and where they have failed. The initiative might culminate in a plenary session where the local fora groups would present their findings. It may make sense to initiate a landscape forum to facilitate the conversation/debate that needs to take place.

Footnote: Landscape Alliance Ireland has always had limited resources and a small team, its website is in need of replacement if we are to follow through with the above initiative, it also needs a new generation of active members if it is to continue. For now we will tidy up the existing website while we establish the level of interest and engagement that exists out there.

Update 17th March 2021

Time to end Ireland’s Landscape Strategy Lockdown!

Covid 19, when it finally passes on or at least abates will leave a stark, unwelcome legacy. We have lost so many fine citizens before their time, people with so much still to share; not least the wisdom of mature years and oral histories of past times and forgotten landscapes. The curriculum of lessons from the experience will be long and demanding. In lockdown we were confined to very limited landscape circles; our mental and physical health and well-being depended on the diversity and richness of the natural and cultural heritage embedded within that very local landscape. Rarely if ever has human society in peacetime asked so much of its local place and space.

The Council of Europe’s visionary European Landscape Convention, Florence 2000 (ELC) was not inspired by the prospect of a worldwide pandemic, but it did recognise that we were becoming ever more dependent on the quality of our local everyday landscapes; whilst concurrently eroding that very quality through careless and ill-informed design and management actions.

Ireland at government level did not actively participate in the preparation of this extraordinary convention, it then casually signed and ratified the convention in March 2002 and very late in the day it launched a National Landscape Strategy for Ireland in May 2015 (NLS) - a potentially progressive strategy document based on the well-crafted ELC. Guided by the NLS some progress made up to early 2018. But the NLS went into lockdown well before Covid 19 came on the scene.

We badly needed a dynamic well-resourced National Landscape Strategy decades before 2015, to guide, inform and control the landscape dimension of planning and development and the management of our evolving landscape; many mistakes have been made in its absence; but it was a case of better late than never!

The most consistent characteristic of our landscape throughout the ages has been change, today our capacity and capability for traumatic physical landscape change grows by the day; in a civilised, responsible society our capacity and capability to sustainably manage that change should grow in parallel.   

The last thing we need in such a scenario is a stalled or worse still, a conveniently forgotten National Landscape Strategy. Landscape Alliance Ireland therefore calls for Ireland to live up to its obligations under the European Landscape Convention and its responsibilities to enrich the quality of life of present and future generations by immediately investing in the implementation of the National Landscape Strategy for Ireland 2015-2025 across all its objectives and actions. The small team that was involved in the preparation and launch of the NLS no longer exists and the 10 year programme of implementation ended in 2018.

The top priority therefore has to be the establishment of a landscape management unit within the responsible department (currently Department of Housing, Local Government & Heritage). The staffing and resourcing of this unit must match the scale and scope of the task involved in implementing such a vital strategy and the programme for implementation must be accelerated.

Landscape Alliance Ireland calls for a National Landscape Strategy Reactivation Plan as a matter of urgency. We invite other interested players and stakeholders to join with us in this call.        

Update 2nd May 2018

National Landscape Forum 2018

‘Ireland’s Waterscapes’

Killaloe, Co. Clare, 24/25 May 2018

Details of this year’s forum have now been finalised and the programme devised by forum convenor Ruth Minogue not alone provides participants with the opportunity guided by local experts to ‘immerse’ themselves in the rich waterscapes and landscapes of the Ballina-Killaloe Landscape Circle, but even more so to ‘ride the big wave’ with some of the big players in Irelands Waterscapes and ‘dip their toes’ into best practice in community engagement with people, place and landscape from the enviable waterscapes of our Gaelic neighbour Scotland courtesy of Scottish Natural Heritage.

Advance booking is strongly recommended as there will be capacity limitations on the lake cruise on Thursday evening and two of the fieldtrips on Friday afternoon.

Click here to download the updated programme 
Click here for booking details

Update 22nd March 2018

National Landscape Forum 2018

‘Ireland’s Waterscapes’

Killaloe, Co. Clare, 24/25 May 2018

Click here for further information, programme and booking details

Update 12th June 2015

National Landscape Forum 2015
Venue: National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin 9
Thursday 25th June 2015 (9.00am to 5.00pm)