ABSTRACT
The increasing interest in landscape and law is related to a sea change occurring in the predominant meaning of landscape itself. The emphasis is shifting from a definition of landscape as scenery to a notion of landscape as polity and place. The shift away from landscape research as the “superficial study of the earth” to the social processes shaping landscape as polity and place, leads to the current interest in the role of human law in the landscape conceived as a “political or cultural entity”. One aspect of landscape that has traditionally played a dominant role in landscape studies is that of nature. An adjunct of the scenic conception of landscape is the idea that this scene has a layered structure, like theatre scenery, with the natural landscape of the stage floor formed by geology that is then overlain by a layer of natural flora and fauna that is in turn overlain by a cultural landscape.
