Landscape Alliance in Scotland to focus on landscape for healthy communities

Green space is important for urban health and wellbeing. Photo: Glasgow by Stinglehammer

Green space is important for urban health and wellbeing. Photo: Glasgow by Stinglehammer

The Landscape Institute Scotland launched a Scottish Landscape Alliance (SLA) earlier this year, Co-Chaired by Rachel Tennant, Landscape Institute Scotland Chair and Stuart Brooks, Head of Conservation and Policy at National Trust for Scotland, and with Sue Evans as vice-chair of its Landscapes for Health and Wellbeing working group. 

Sue Evans will be speaking at the International Healthy Streets Summit in October about the Alliance's plans...

Over 90 people and 65 organisations were represented and the launch was supported by Gillian Martin MSP and Convener of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee. Chris Dalglish, Director of the Inherit Institute and Chair of the Landscape Research Group, provided the keynote speech on the implications of the European Landscape Convention with a particular focus on human rights and landscape.

This Alliance is significant in the history of landscape policy, and signals the beginning of the work of the SLA to maximise the benefits provided by the landscape and place, whether they’re economic, social, cultural or environmental. It will encourage both public and political support for better care of Scotland’s landscape.

The Landscape Institute Scotland welcome this continuation of the five aims of their vision statement Landscape for Scotland, with it being a great opportunity for a range of organisations to collaborate to maximise the public benefits from Scotland’s landscape and places whether economic, social, cultural or environmental, and to gain public and political support for better care of landscape and place, ensuring a collective vision fit for the 21c and beyond.

The Alliance aims to co-operate on landscape issues at a national and international level in line with the standards set by the European Landscape Convention of the Council of Europe.

Delegates at the launch event were asked to debate and sign up to topic focused, time limited Working Groups within the themes of:-

• Landscape for healthy communities
• Landscape and resilience to environmental challenges
• Landscape, land use and economy

Each group is tasked with considering the overarching principle of landscape and placemaking and the underpinning process of stewardship and management of landscapes and place.

From the outcomes of the Working Groups, the SLA will publish a report outlining recommendations for regulatory, policy and other changes with the aim of enhancing public and environmental benefits from Scotland’s landscapes and places.

• Ongoing Work of the SLA Executive Committee
• Undertake public consultation/engagement during the process and carry out research with a focus on technical policy review and implementation of existing strategy
• Reconvene as the SLA membership before the end of the initial Working Group process to sense check some of the Groups work (November 2019 )
• Share progress and raise awareness of the SLA to broader audiences.