B 3.2 Landscapes and individual or social strategies

"The people who look at a given landscape do not react in the same way to its appearance and features. They analyze it, distinguish different elements and develop ideas about their possible uses. For an urban dweller, a rural lanscape is a surface of green colours during Spring and Summer, of yellow, gold and red in Autumn, of brown, grey, black – or white, if there is snow – during Winter time: it offers possibilities for walking, practicing different sports, relaxing. For a farmer, the same landscape is made of farmsteads or villages surrounded by fields which produce different crops, meadows and rough pastures which feed herds or flocks, woods, etc. For the tourist developer, the environment is made of gentle slopes which would harbour marvelous golf links, cliffs which invite climbing, beaches which would be transformed into sea-resorts, etc. For the urban developer, it is made of plots of land which could be transformed into new housing…
Landscapes are not perceived as static background for human action. They are part of it. Each individual imagines strategies for developing some of their elements, or capitalizing on their global appearance in order to launch new activities. Landscape is thus transformed into an arena where the different social protagonists dream of future land uses and developments, and struggle to achieve them."

(This is an excerpt from the text by Professor Paul Claval available in full at....