Changing approaches to landscape character evaluation and their implications for landscape ecological planning

This paper considers the importance of new approaches to landscape mapping in terms of their potential to assist 'wider countryside' planning, Countryside planning has tended to protect 'the best' rather than 'the rest' and this has contributed to a landscape of fragmentation rather than heterogeneity. Presently, a number of approaches within Europe are seeking to consolidate the 'conservation estate', and thus to retain and re-create coherence in landscape pattern and scale, Without clearly defined and agreed landscape objectives, however, it is impossible to produce definitive plans for specific areas, New countryside mapping schemes -- in England, most notably those of the Countryside Agency and English Nature -- have especial importance for land use planning and management as they help define the intrinsic visual/ecological character of an area and convert it into practical policy objectives, In seeking to implement strategies based on these objectives, however, planners encounter a number of 'barriers' as well as 'bridges'.