literally landscape means an expanse of scenery of a particular type especially as much as can be seen by the eye.
landscape conservation is an activity concerned with reconciling competing land uses while protecting natural processes and significant cultural and natural resources. Jharkhand is one such States which is replete with natural landscapes but rapid urbanisation with lack of proper laws is destroying such natural gifts very rapidly.
landscape planners are concerned with the ‘health’ of the landscape, just as doctors are concerned with bodily health. This analogy can be taken further. Medical doctors advise both on the health of individuals and on matters of public health. When individuals take actions injurious to their own health this is regarded as a private matter. But if they take actions injurious to public health, these actions are properly regulated by law. The collective landscape is a public goodwhich should be protected and enhanced by legislation and public administration.
Ranchi, Bokaro, Hazaribagh, Dhanbad, and Jamshedpur are such towns in Jharkhand where nearly half of the landscapes have been razed to the ground in the name of colonisation, industrialisation, and road because there has been no legislation in landscape planning and conservation in Jharkhand. Such disturbances — as far as avoidable — must be stopped or their adverse effects must be offset within a prescribed period by measures of nature preservation.
The principles of landscape planning are now incorporated in various types of legislation and policy documents. In Germany, the Federal Nature Conservation Act requires the preparation of landscape plans. For the Europe Union as a whole, the European landscape Convention has wide-ranging implications for the design and planning of relationships between development and the landscape. In Asia, major development projects are taking place and illustrating the need for good landscape planning.
The three Gorges dam, for example, will have extensive impacts on the landscape. They have been planned to a degree but future monitoring of the project is likely to show that better landscape planning and design would have been possible. In Belgium, the legislation of 1987 allows public authorities to protect monuments and rural areas by classifying the buildings or the landscapes. In such a case, limits can be put on the owners’ rights to use their property freely. These restrictions, insofar as they cause damage to the owner’s or the tenant’s rights, can be counterbalanced by financial compensation to be paid by the public authorities concerned.
In Denmark, there are laws to protect Danish landscapes and to give the public an opportunity to enjoy the Danish countryside. In Denmark the classical instrument of realizing these purposes is the conservation easement, which may forbid the owner to build houses, etc. exploit raw materials, drain the land, or even use pesticides if it might harm plants and animal life.
A conservation easement can also give the public a right of access to an area. The decision to submit land to a conservation easement is made by a local board. The decision is a kind of expropriation that entitles the owner to compensation according to the provisions of the Constitution. Nature reserves are created in accordance with the regional planning through conservation easements combined with a restrictive administration of the Planning Act, the Forestry Act, the Raw Materials Act, etc.
The provisions of the Nature Conservation Act also establish protective Zones along beaches , watercourses , lakes and forests where the construction of buildings and the exploitation of raw material require a licence from the Nature Conservation authorities, Water streams, lakes and salt marshes are protected against dredging and filling, afforestation, etc. Beaches and uncultivated areas are to a certain extent open to the public
In Germany,provisions concerning disturbances of natural resources and the landscape may be relevant for farming under the protection afforded the whole area of Germany (outside the reserves). ‘Disturbances’ of nature and landscape’ are human activities that cause changes in land use or the shape of plots. If the adverse effects on nature and the landscape cannot be avoided or offset, the disturbance must be prohibited, provided that preservation of nature has priority.
India and Jharkhand in particular also need a law like that of the western countries so that natural landscapes are saved and new ones developed alongside the roads and tourist spots. Only then the inbound tourists may become fascinated to visit our places.
(The writer is a senior IAS officer, presently posted as Deputy Commissioner in Ramgarh)