ABSTRACT
Whilst nature needs ‘space’ it could be argued that people need ‘place’. People connect with landscape in a number of ways. It is claimed, for example, that various landscape qualities and properties lead to attachment to or identification with a place, and may promote social inclusion by creating venues for encounters and shared activities. Pleasant landscapes evidently contribute to people’s health and well-being both as restorative settings for mental and spiritual replenishment and as places for more energetic exercise. Enrolling people in the intelligent care of landscape, whether as part of their livelihood or for reasons of fulfilment and enjoyment, can help foster awareness of environmental dynamics and sensitivities, and of our responsibilities towards nature. There is some evidence that the landscape provides an arena in which social learning can occur and institutional thickness can develop, both through direct involvement in land care and through wider engagement in collaborative and participatory governance of environmental programmes (Schusler et al., 2003). Finally, there are demonstrable links between landscape quality and economic sustainability, both because the landscape can be an attractive setting for investment (Henneberry et al., 2004; Rowley et al., 2008) and because valued cultural landscapes have acquired many of their distinctive qualities as accidental by-products of economic activity.
