Looking after our landscapes

News Item - UK Landscape Award

SNH is supporting the first ever UK Landscape Award PDF document of the European Landscape Convention (ELC). This Award highlights the important role of landscape in making good places, and shows the benefits a good landscape brings to communities.

Looking after our landscapes

Looking after our landscapes is not about preserving all landscapes in their current form. Landscapes are continually changing, and this can be positive if it is well planned and managed. We need to recognise that the capacity of landscapes to accommodate development varies from place to place, and we need to make sure that, wherever possible, change leads to enhanced landscapes, to make the most of the benefits they provide.

Looking after our landscapes is a responsibility shared by all of us. By working together, SNH and other national bodies, planning authorities, communities and developers can maintain and enhance the diversity and quality of the environment in our settlements, countryside, coasts and seas, and also improve the quality of our degraded landscapes.

If you:

have a direct role in activities that affect landscapes, such as planning, built development and land management;
are involved in landscape policy making;
want to find out how communities can get involved in managing and enhancing their local landscapes,

then the management and practical information here should help you.