The “Message from Strasbourg”: Landscape and health, invites the competent public authorities and territorial actors to consider:
the importance of the landscape at global level as an essential component of human being’s surroundings.
Preamble of the Council of Europe Landscape Convention (ETS No. 176).
It intends to respond to the challenges of the international meeting of the United Nations “Stockholm+50: a healthy planet for the prosperity of all – our responsibility, our opportunity”, 2-3 June 2022.
Reference texts:
Recommendation CM/Rec(2017)7 on the contribution of the European Landscape Convention to the exercise of human rights and democracy with a view to sustainable development:
The Committee of Ministers… Recommends that the governments of States Parties to the European Landscape Convention: … consider the importance that quality and diversity of landscapes has for the minds and bodies of human beings, as well as for societies, in the reflections and work devoted to human rights and democracy, with a view to sustainable development…
Recommendation CM/Rec(2008)3 on the guidelines for the implementation of the European Landscape Convention:
The concept of landscape in the convention differs from the one that may be found in certain documents, which sees in landscape an “asset” (heritage concept of landscape) and assesses it (as “cultural”, “natural” etc. landscape) by considering it as a part of physical space. This new concept expresses, on the contrary, the desire to confront, head-on and in a comprehensive way, the theme of the quality of the surroundings where people live; this is recognised as a precondition for individual and social well-being (understood in the physical, physiological, psychological and intellectual sense) and for sustainable development, as well as a resource conducive to economic activity.
Attention is focused on the territory as a whole, without distinguishing between the urban, peri-urban, rural and natural parts, or between parts that may be regarded as outstanding, everyday or degraded; it is not limited to cultural, artificial and natural elements: the landscape forms a whole whose constituent parts are considered simultaneously in their interrelations.
See more:
- Council of Europe Landscape Convention
- Texts of reference
- Information System
- Information Platform
- The Landscape Award Alliance of the Council of Europe
- Leaflet on the landscape approach
- Website of the Convention
Events organised for the 20 October at national, regional and local level:
- Croatia
Landscape and Health Conference - Zagreb, 28 October 2022 - hybrid
On the occasion of Sixth International Landscape Day of the Council of Europe on the theme “Landscape and Health”, the Conference invites every citizen to contribute to preserving the quality of the landscape, and emphasize the government's responsibility to establish a general framework that provides the basis for ensuring this quality, because the quality of the landscape is an important part of urban environments, and "green" solutions have multiple benefits, that is, they positively affect the climate, the quality of life and health of people.
