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Chapter 7: Land and Soil
National Landscape Strategy
Protecting and enhancing the landscape while positively managing change
.
The European Landscape Convention (ELC) seeks to strike
a balance between management planning and landscape
protection. In Ireland, this is being provided for through
the Planning and Development Act Regulations 2000‑2010
and Local Government Reform Act 2014. The National
Landscape Strategy (NLS) (DAHG, 2015b) also seeks to
ensure that Ireland complies with the ELC by establishing
principles for protecting and enhancing the landscape while
positively managing changes.
The National Land Cover and Habitat Mapping Programme
is considering developing detailed land cover maps that will
be essential to assess the potential impacts on our landscape
resource of land use planning.
Figure 7.6
The Landscape Wheel (Source: Natural England)
Figure 1: What is landscape?
Land use
Settlement
Enclosure
Land ownership
Time depth
P
L
A
C
E
P
E
O
P
L
E
N
A
T
U
R
A
L
C
U
L
T
U
R
A
L
/
S
O
C
I
A
L
P
E
R
C
E
P
T
U
A
L
&
A
E
S
T
H
E
T
I
C
S
I
G
H
T
Memories
Associations
Preferences
Touch/feel
Smells
Sounds
Form
Pattern
Texture
Colour
Geology
Landform
Hydrology
Air & Climate
Soils
Land cover/
flora & fauna
Landscape
The NLS specifies a commitment to ensuring that sector-specific policies and legislation within the remit of relevant
bodies are consistent with the objectives of the strategy. These include:
n
implementing ELC recommendations into the planning process;
n
preparing “State of Landscape Report(s)”;
n
providing a national and sectoral-level landscape policy framework to protect, manage and plan for the
sustainable stewardship of our landscape.