The Right to Landscape:

Contesting Landscape and Human Rights

 

International Workshop

Cambridge 8-10 December 2008

© 2008

 

 

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 1 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights

 

The international workshop, The Right to Landscape, has been successfully held in Cambridge UK on the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  The workshop, organised by CCLP, aimed to expand on the concept of human rights in the context of landscape, an umbrella concept of an integrated entity of physical environments that is imbued with meaning.

Landscape and identity are inherent components of culture, one informing the other.  Ecologically-healthy landscapes, accessible, and free to enjoy, as well as the respect for spiritual and symbolic meanings people ascribe to them, are some of the components that will support dignity and well-being of communities.  Our right to breathe clean air and drink un-polluted water is today taken for granted and concepts such as property rights and land ownership hold legal stature.  Yet, while one cannot own “a landscape”, the symbolic and ideological potency of landscape is undeniable.  It is often the case that ideological discourses such as property rights or security of some groups, dominate and reinforce the powerful.  The proposition of this workshop was that “landscape is a shared resource and all human beings deserve the right to landscape”.  The aim of this workshop was therefore to collectively define the concept of the right to landscape. Papers and outcomes of the workshop will appear in a scientific publication.