Implementing the European Landscape Convention in the Romania-Bulgaria cross-border region (Detente)

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Implementing the European Landscape Convention in the Romania-Bulgaria cross-border region:

Guidelines and recommendations

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Table of Contents

I. Introduction ............................................................................................................. 3

1. Sustainable territorial development ................................................................... 7

2. Exemplary value................................................................................................... 7

3. Public participation .............................................................................................. 7

4. Awareness-raising................................................................................................ 7

II. A sustainable ecosystem, a multifunctional landscape ........................................... 8

III. Fostering landscape initiatives through territorial awareness-raising .................. 13

IV. An innovative scale for new funding opportunities .............................................. 13

V. A working landscape, a valued asset ..................................................................... 14

1. Protecting a landscape, promoting a brand ....................................................... 15

2. The attractive landscape as a destination .......................................................... 16

VI. Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 17

Recommendation 1: Creating a Romania-Bulgaria Cross Border Landscape award: The first step of a disruptive communication strategy .................................................... 19

Recommendation Nr 2: The creation of Cross Border Landscape Charts and Management Plans ........................................................................................................... 21

Recommendation 3: Integrating landscape in Romania and Bulgaria cross-sectorial policies .............................................................................................................................. 22

Recommendation nr 4: A multifunctional Landscape: The provisioning functions .......................................................................................................................................... 23

Recommendation nr 5: A multifunctional Landscape: Regulation & Habitat functions ........................................................................................................................... 25

Recommendation nr 6: A multifunctional Landscape: Cultural and amenity functions ........................................................................................................................... 26

Annex 1: Assessment questionnaire for the implementation of landscape project ...... 29

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I. Introduction

On the 20th October 2000, the European Landscape Convention (ETS No. 176) is adopted in Florence by the Council of Europe (COE)

It is now ratified by the majority of the COE members, including Romania and Bulgaria, and stands as an essential document for any policymaker or stakeholders that have to tackle with this topic.

The ELC actions are driven by the “changes in the world economy [that] are in many cases accelerating the transformation of landscapes”1 and are aimed to promote the idea that “the quality and diversity of European landscapes constitute a common resource, and that it is important to co-operate towards its protection, management and planning”2.

The explanatory report of the Convention provides that “the general purpose of the Convention was to encourage public authorities to adopt policies and measures at local, regional, national and international level for protecting, managing and planning landscapes throughout Europe so as to maintain and improve landscape quality and bring the public, institutions and local and regional authorities to recognise the value and importance of landscape and to take part in related public decisions” 3

In a very interesting article the sociologist Monica Sassatelli informs us about the Convention “behind- the- scenes” and help us to better understand the shift of paradigm in landscape policy that the convention implied.

She writes that before the ELC “emerging European landscape policies are scarcely formalized and involved a wide typology of actors. Landscape cross-cuts sectorial policies (in such traditional sectors as agriculture, environment, culture, planning and tourism), “Landscape policies” can range from framework land-use planning to the conservation of biodiversity, aesthetic and historical landscape features, to so-called landscape character assessments, to initiatives as wide ranging as new training and university courses or as small scale as the promotion of landscape paths or tree-planting events”4.

The definition of the ELC does not really solve this indefinite character since: “Landscape policy means an expression by the competent public authorities of general principles, strategies and guidelines that permit the taking of specific measures aimed at the protection, management and planning of landscapes”5.

1 Preamble of the European Landscape Convention

2 Idem

3 European Landscape Convention, Explanatory Report, art 25

4 Monica Sassatelli, European Identity between Flows and Places: Insights from Emerging European

Landscape Policies. Sociology, 44(1), 2010, p 69

5 European Landscape Convention, art 1-b

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She continues her analysis: “like many other European documents the ELC itself is the result of contrasting forces: if the initial impetus was of a defensive type (“against globalization” as a destroyer of the specificity of places), tendencies to define only landscape as the object of mere conservation have been resisted, and landscape is defined so as to include transformation rather than to condemn it. Definitions are always left sufficiently open-ended to allow for further adjustments to Europe’s many contexts and agencies”6.

If the definition of the landscape policy is an issue, we can imagine that the definition of the landscape itself is as controversial as it is meaningful for our purpose.

The ELC has made the choice of a wide definition mainly directed towards what is commonly named cultural landscapes. Indeed the ELC’s definition is very close to the one given to the cultural landscape in the art 47 of the World Heritage Convention of the UNESCO: “Cultural landscapes are cultural properties and represent the combined works of nature and of man. They are illustrative of the evolution of human society and settlement over time, under the influence of the physical constraints and/or opportunities presented by their natural environment and of successive social, economic and cultural forces, both external and internal”.

The influence of this definition will be decisive regarding the question of the scope and the goals of the ELC since they are determined by the definition of its object.

Art 1 of the ELC defines “Landscape” as an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors.

The Convention is therefore extremely clear, the landscape is made of an interaction between the nature and man, this interaction cannot be blocked or stopped, as we will see, it has to be enhanced and managed since preservation cannot be a synonym for petrification.

Moreover the Convention “applies to the entire territory and covers natural, rural, urban and peri-urban areas. It includes land, inland water and marine areas. It concerns landscapes that may be considered outstanding as well as everyday and degraded landscapes7”.

The Convention proposes instruments that have the goal to integrate landscape in multi-level and cross-sectorial policies. Indeed the question of implementation draws multiple lines of division between European countries at a national and regional level, in such way that it is difficult to have an overall visibility of all the policy issues that the convention tackle.

In other words, while the convention insists on the inclusion of landscapes in sectorial policies, it is in fact the daily reality in most European country. The crucial difference is the lack of awareness of stakeholders about landscapes and its potentialities and of its close relation to the population well-being.

The aim of the Convention is to raise that awareness, to give landscape a concrete and methodological basis so every sectorial policy can be interrelated and conscious about its stakes, especially the one regarding the well-being of the population and the importance of the surroundings of the landscapes.

6 Monica Sassatelli, op.cit. p 70

7 European Landscape Convention, Art 2

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Evidently the ELC is not a European treaty or a European directive, it is a genuine example of one of the soft regulations that can be formalized by the Council of Europe. Therefore “Each state decides on its own institutional organisation in landscape matters according to its own overall institutional organisation (centralised, decentralised, federal) at the existing government levels (from national to local levels) and according to its own administrative and cultural traditions and existing structures8”.

In order to continue awareness-raising and to provide an alternative to the traditional way of recognition of outstanding cultural or natural heritage, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe institutes on 20 February 2008, the Landscape Award of the Council of Europe (COE). It follows the Article 11 that provides that “the Committee of Ministers shall define and publish the criteria for conferring the award, adopt the relevant rules and grant the award”.

This award is symbolic of the COE ‘stance towards the building of a united and coherent European policy towards landscapes and to the decision to not follow the path of institutions like the UNESCO.

Indeed the UNESCO is well known for listing material or immaterial heritage, which is not meant to be the spirit of the Convention. The ELC is here to spark a dynamic, to take into account changes, modification in landscapes that are meant to be a long-term interaction between people and their environment.

A list, the sole perspective of a heritage, would be against this political stance. It is the reason why an award is deeply symbolic of the wish to reward initiatives, involvements of all stakeholders in the protection, the management and the promotion of landscapes.

The committee of Ministers specifies that “the award’s purpose is to reward exemplary practical initiatives for the achievement of landscape quality objectives on the territories of parties to the Convention. 9 ”

Therefore the rules and frameworks governing the Landscape Award of the Council of Europe are certainly a very good indicator of what European stakeholders have in mind when they tackle this very broad issue.

Indeed “the award is an honorary distinction which acknowledges a policy or measures implemented by local or regional authorities or their groupings, or particularly remarkable contributions by non-governmental organisations, for sustainable protection, management and/or planning of landscapes. The award rewards a process of implementation of the Convention at national or transnational levels resulting in an effective, measurable

8 Recommendation CM/Rec (2008)3 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the guidelines for the implementation of the European Landscape Convention ((Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 6 February 2008 at the 17th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies). In fact the Convention already stated in its Art 4 “Each Party shall implement this convention, in particular Articles 5 and 6, according to its own division of powers, in conformity with its constitutional principles and administrative arrangements, and respecting the principle of subsidiarity, taking into account the European Charter of Local Self-government. Without derogating from the provisions of this convention, each Party shall harmonize the implementation of this Convention with its own policies.”

9 Resolution CM/Res(2008)3, On the rules governing the Landscape Award of the Council of Europe (Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 20 February 2008 at the 1018th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies)

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achievement. The award also helps to make people more aware of the importance of landscapes for human development, consolidation of the European identity and the well-being of individuals and society as a whole. It fosters public participation in the decision-making process concerning landscape policies”10.

The most important features are indeed the criteria for conferring the Landscape Award of the Council of Europe that will a very useful guideline in the shaping of our recommendations for the cross-border area.

These four criteria imply all the major and current thematic in landscape development and the singular perspective of the COE, reminding us that landscapes are not at all a static and easy concept but rather a controversial one where guidelines from a authority as the COE is very useful in order to avoid forgetting or neglecting one of the many dimensions and resources of landscapes.

10 Appendix to Resolution CM/Res(2008)3,Rules governing the Landscape Award of the Council of Europe, art 1

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1. Sustainable territorial development

The completed projects submitted must give tangible form to the protection, management and/or planning of landscapes. This means that the projects must have been completed and open to the public at least three years, when the candidatures were submitted. They must also:

be part of a sustainable development policy and be in harmony with the territorial organisation of the area concerned;

demonstrate their environmental, social, economic, cultural and aesthetic sustainability;

counter or remedy any damage to landscape structures;

help enhance and enrich the landscape and develop new qualities.

2. Exemplary value

The implementation of the policy or measures that have helped to improve the protection, management and/or planning of the landscapes concerned must set an example of good practice for others to follow.

3. Public participation

The policy or measures implemented with a view to the protection, management and/or planning of the landscapes concerned should involve the active participation of the public, local and regional authorities and other players and should clearly reflect the landscape quality objectives. The public should be able to participate simultaneously in two ways:

Through dialogue and exchanges between members of society (public meetings, debates, procedures for participation and consultation in the field, for example);

Through procedures for public participation and involvement in landscape policies implemented by national, regional or local authorities.

4. Awareness-raising

Article 6.A of the Convention provides that “each Party undertakes to increase awareness among civil society, private organisations and public authorities of the value of landscapes, their role and changes to them”. Action along these lines taken, as part of the completed project concerned will be assessed. 11

These four criteria enhance the idea that the landscape is “a mainstream political concern, since it plays an important role in the well-being of Europeans who are no longer prepared to tolerate the alteration of their surroundings by technical and economic

11 Appendix to the rules, Criteria for conferring the Landscape Award of the Council of Europe

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developments in which they have had no say. Landscape is the concern of all and lends itself to democratic treatment, particularly at local and regional level”12.

II. A sustainable ecosystem, a multifunctional landscape

As we approached it in our introduction, defining a landscape is truly not an easy task, since it is seen as an amalgam of natural, economic and cultural aspects.

Basically, a landscape can be defined, as an ecosystem that is interacting with man and that is located at the crossroads of nature and culture. This interaction is mostly beneficial to the population since as an ecosystem, landscapes can provides goods and services in various ways.

It can be food or energy but also a recreational service which can all lead to its subjective valorisation (financial, emotional, aesthetical or recreational) which is important in the measurement of a population demand for a landscape in particular or for some of its features

This encounter between the objective features of a landscape, its nature, and its subjective features, grasped in the mind and in the needs and practices of men, shows us its ambivalence.

Traditionally analysed through a regulatory, geographical, artistic or even strategic, perspective, the ELC definition, this new landscape paradigm, opens the door to almost philosophical enquiries about our relation with nature, about the way it unveils to us a new relation that is no more dialectical, where we are the subject and nature the object, but rather intersubjective where we are both subjects, where nature is not reified but where we help nature in its development and vice-versa.

The paradigm of modernity put the human being at the centre of the world, this anthropocentric view is the core of a will to master nature, to frame (to Gestell) it as an assets, a property that can be used and abused, whereas we should remind to refrain this excess, to “uti, non abuti”, to use and to not abuse13.

Sustainable development policies, growing environmental concerns, new regulations prove that the time of the abuse is now gone. The ELC is the example of an initiative that underlines the importance of this equal relation whilst, in a smart approach, avoid to be too directive, to forget that many landscapes are not the results of designed plans, of a ruling authority but rather of traditional farming practices, of the fulfilment of its every day needs by a local population and that this spatial relation has an existence and a temporality of its own.

To that extent, it is very difficult to use a traditional, administrative, top-down approach towards landscapes because some are originally free from any political planning while another part of them were built on a political agenda or for industrial purpose.

12 European Landscape Convention, Explanatory Report, art 23

13 Martin Heidegger, “Die Frage nach der Technik” in Vorträge und Aufsätze, Pfullingen, G. Neske, 1954,

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The meaning of this gap is based on the difference commonly made between a monofunctional and a multifunctional landscape.

A cross-border example can help us to illustrate this difference, in South-West Oltenia, in the county of Mehedinti, they are two communes whose landscapes are mainly related to coal extraction being then coal-mining landscapes.

Before the industrialization and the concomitant need of coal for the steel industry and the production of electricity, these lands were devoted to agriculture.

The coal mining introduced a monofunctional use of the landscape, disregarding of any other considerations that the extraction of the precious lignite. The result is the loss of groundwater, landslides and important social issues; firstly this landscape is an unfriendly and even marked environment, like any other industrial landscapes where horizons are veiled by decayed chimney and remnants of their smokes.

The interaction between the human and its environment is broken because nature is used and abused, seen only as a resource to exploit till exhaustion.

This example shows that monofunctionality goes with an outdated view of environment designed in a time of unplanned necessity when the most fashionable term in use was not sustainable development but short-term profitability.

The multifunctionality is richer because it understands the landscape as a “land of opportunities”; it promotes the multiplicity of interactions between the population and the landscapes.

Of course agriculture is the centre of this landscape “praxis “which, in the case of the cross-border area, cannot be seen as an issue but rather as quite fortunate.

De Groot et al. define landscape functions, as "the capacity of natural processes and components to provide goods and services that satisfy human needs, directly or indirectly”. This means that landscape functions “[…] can be seen as the actual (“functional”) processes and components in ecosystems and landscapes that provide the goods and services that have direct or indirect, benefit to human welfare14.”

The EPSON” project LIVELAND, which aimed at enhancing the liveability of landscapes, chose to use mainly the term function in its analysis of landscapes. According to its researches there would be a general agreement on three categories/ functions, namely production, regulation and cultural functions.15

It is quite surprising that the LIVELAND project chose only three types of functions since most of the models available comprise 4 functions.

14 Groot, J.C.J., Rossing, W.A.H., Jellema, A., Stobbelaar, D.J., Renting, H. and Van Ittersum, M.K.

(2007), “Exploring multi-scale trade-offs between nature conservation, agricultural profits and

landscape quality – A methodology to support discussions on land-use perspectives”, Agriculture,

Ecosystems & Environment, 120(1): 58–69, [DOI].

15 http://www.espon.eu/main/Menu_Projects/Menu_TargetedAnalyses/liveland.html

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Indeed the common typology includes four categories: (1) provisioning functions; (2) regulation functions; (3) habitat functions; and (4) cultural and amenity functions (Groot et al.16):

a) Provisioning functions

They comprise functions that supply “physical services” in terms of resources or space. This category has been divided into two classes, production and carrier functions:

i. Production functions reflect resources produced by natural ecosystems, for example the harvesting of fish from the ocean.

ii. Carrier functions reflect the goods and services that are provided through human manipulation of the natural productivity (e.g. fish from aquaculture). In these cases, the function from nature is the provision of suitable substrate or space for human activities, including agriculture, mining, transportation, etc.

b) Regulation functions

They result from the capacity of ecosystems and landscapes to influence (“regulate”) climate, hydrological and biochemical cycles, earth surface processes, and a variety of biological processes. These services often have an important spatial (connectivity) aspect; e.g. the flood control service of an upper watershed forest is only relevant in the flood zone downstream of the forest.

c) Habitat functions

They comprise the importance of ecosystems and landscapes to maintain natural processes and biodiversity, including the refuge and the nursery functions. The refuge function reflects the value that landscape units have to provide habitat to (threatened) fauna and flora, the nursery function indicates that some landscape units provide a particularly suitable location for reproduction and thereby have a regulating impact on the maintenance of populations elsewhere.

d) Cultural and amenity functions

They relate to the benefits people obtain from landscapes through recreation, cognitive development, relaxation and spiritual reflection. This may involve actual visits to the area, indirectly enjoying the area (e.g. through nature movies), or gaining satisfaction from the knowledge that a landscape contains important biodiversity or cultural monuments.

This model has been slightly changed by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment which outlines provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting services in relation to the

16 de Groot et al 2002. A typology for the classification, description and valuation of ecosystem functions,

goods and services. Ecological economics 41 (393-408)

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constituents of well-being closely to the logic of the ELC as it underlines the interaction between people and a delimited territory that provides positive outcomes and enhance the overall well-being of the population.

The support provided by ecosystems services to human well-being. Source: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005.

The idea of a landscape that would provide ecosystem services contributing to general well-being is very well exemplified by agriculture where the single introduction of a beneficial insect that protects crops against parasites can create a true virtuous circle.

Indeed if the farmer does not use insecticide, he will not pollute groundwater and will produce organic products that will have an added value. Moreover the return to a more traditional farming practice will enhance the aesthetic attractiveness of the landscape.

From this example we see that multifunctionality is meant to be an endogenous process that benefits to everyone.

Nevertheless several issues have to be tackle to achieve this idea of a self-sufficient landscape because indeed this quite autarkic image may seem a bit unrealistic.

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The CAP shows us that the inclusion of environment concerns in farming practices is often linked to financial incentives17. This approach can be hazardous since it is very difficult to assess the economic contribution of a farmer to the preservation of a landscape and that ideally the incentive should be the profit of sustainable farming.

This difficulty is correlated to factors as complex as the market of agricultural products where small-scale initiatives have absolutely no impact.

The other problem can be the lack of a long-term vision in favour of short-term projects with limited funding. The idea being to show as fast as possible how the money is spent even if the results will not last long.

This is the reason why the ELC underlines the sustainability of a landscape project especially as a fundamental criterion for applying to the award. The authorities stated that “the applied project has to be part of a sustainable development policy and be in harmony with the territorial organisation of the area concerned; to demonstrate their environmental, social, economic, cultural and aesthetic sustainability; to counter or remedy any damage to landscape structures; to help enhance and enrich the landscape and develop new qualities”18.

These necessities show us one of the main difficulties for the authority in charge of the definition of a landscape strategy; it must manage a very important number of factors.

Landscape which seems at first sight a spatial delimitation within a territory with specific features, is now a sort of territorial Gordian knot with so many intricate threads as people, economy, culture, aesthetics, participatory democracy, private and public stakeholders that is seem impossible to really grasp the concrete actions that can be undertake in order to fulfil the commitment to the Convention or even more to understand fully the value of the ELC and its instruments.

However an active implementation of the Convention can be a key leverage at a cross-border scale, since the region shares some similarities with landscapes as it is formal and as it is an interaction between natural elements (the Danube, the Black Sea, localisation in their countries, in Europe) and people (identity, common lags and priorities for development and relation with their capitals and the rest of their national territory)

Therefore landscapes can be a key for a sustainable territorial development of the region at the condition that the ELC framework is well implemented or at least that these new territorial entities gain some visibility in order to be eligible for European programmes or any other funding.

In the scope of the ELC, these funds would not be oriented solely towards landscape development; they would mainly be a response to a variety of issues belonging to the domain of environment, agriculture or culture. The landscape is a place where all these questions spatially merge, it can be compared to a catchment area of all the developmental needs of the cross-border region.

17 Consortium Detente Consultants Srl / Atelier Foaie Verde Srl, Audit of the Current Situation

(Valuing landscape of the border Romania-Bulgaria ), p26-29

18 Appendix to the rules, Criteria for conferring the Landscape Award of the Council of Europe

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In order to value that diversity and these opportunities, landscapes have to be understood by their functions, by their relation with their environment. This view has to balance the limited aesthetic or monofunctional definition of the landscape in order to assert it as an eco-system in itself providing goods and services.

III. Fostering landscape initiatives through territorial awareness-raising

We will stress first and foremost the need to lighten any administrative or regulatory burden regarding landscape policy. The voluntary implementation that we advocate is the assertion that the spirit of the ELC is that solutions will come from a partnership between the populations, the farmers, the SME’s, the public authorities…

All these stakeholders have to be informed about the work already done by the authorities and the identification of numerous landscapes in the area, therefore the first initiative is to communicate, to spread the news that what most people knew as an area or a territory is now considered as a landscape, to implement awareness-raising measures towards the area covered by a landscape to inform about the meaning of landscape and its possible outcomes

A landscape caravan could travel around the area in order to present the programme and the opportunities that it offers.

Local authorities, NGOs and LAGs ( local group of actions) should be given information and material to organize public meetings

Without these first initiatives it would be very difficult to implement any policy even though some could suggest that exemplary landscapes could be chosen for the first policies, reducing the cost of this widespread communication.

At the contrary, this initiative is the best way to get in touch with the population, for instance through the assessment of a survey or the organization of local meetings, it will be easier to decide which local stakeholders are the most motivated by the project or need it the most.

The goal of these recommendations cannot be only to find areas to implement projects with existing funds. It is to find areas where a dynamic can be sparked, areas that represent the cross-border cross-sectorial lags, needs and opportunities and that will find benefits in the landscape scale.

IV. An innovative scale for new funding opportunities

Indeed we have seen that landscapes are a variety of things but we have not yet emphasized that landscape governance introduced a new scale for public policies. As a matter of fact in an area like the cross-border region, in places like the twin cities ( cities facing each other on the Danube banks), landscapes can be the ideal way to create a territorial entity with a proper policy and management.

Landscapes permit to draw territorial limits in a more efficient way and for this reason to be more eligible for EU funding through some of the Commission new instruments.

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These new instruments as Community-Led-Local-Development follows the principle of subsidiarity as it focuses on specific sub-regional territories where local action groups composed of representatives of local public and private socio-economic interests carry out area-based local development strategies designed to take into consideration local needs and potentials19.

On this model, the building of network with public and private stakeholders at a landscape scale for related purposes can permit the upbringing of such horizontal initiatives and the fostering of evolved and agile public authorities.

For instance, the Commission underlined funding priorities regarding Romania and Bulgaria that meet some of the landscape policy aims notably the protection of natural resources or the need of a greener economy20.

The CLLD is a perfect instrument to attract these funds since it is designed by a local action group that we can name a landscape action group that will focus on one specific matter as biodiversity protection or heritage preservation.

The conceptual advantage of the landscape is to give people a panoramic view of the effects of their actions. The landscape strategy at the scale of the cross-border region has to be simple, easy to understand and to implement because it can gives short-term benefits that are unknown to the population.

If the landscape can be seen as a system, the landscape strategy is more of a circle, a virtuous circle where one single initiative sparks other initiatives that enhances each other.

The role of the authority is to give knowledge, awareness and to help people define their needs, design their projects, apply for funding and finally implement structures fitted for their local development.

Landscape is an opportunity to promote the sharing of common interests, identities and perspectives. Moreover it opens various fields of implementation, agriculture is a priority in a rural area but the recreational and cultural value of landscapes is as much important.

V. A working landscape, a valued asset

“Working landscapes” is a broad term that expresses the goal of fostering landscapes where production of market goods and ecosystem services is mutually reinforcing. “It means working with people as partners to create landscapes and ecosystems that benefit humanity and the planet21”.

For instance farmers educated to this idea will take specific, measurable steps to improve the environmental impact of their commodity crop production. This idea is now widely spread in the USA where it exists a working landscape certificate with specific criteria for better farming practices22.

19 http://enrd.ec.europa.eu/themes/clld/en/clld_en.cfm

20 http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/what/future/index_en.cfm

21 http://ourenvironment.berkeley.edu/research/research-themes/working-landscapes/

22 http://www.sustainablebiomaterials.org/criteria.landscape.php. The following criteria are part of this

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Some of the production criteria that could be promoted through a good practices label include:

No use of genetically modified (GM) crops, thereby protecting biodiversity.

No continuous annual crop production on the same acreage, thereby protecting soil.

Soil testing on contracted acres and fertilization according to test results and state agronomic recommendations to assure that nutrients are used efficiently and are not likely to be leached from the soil.

No use of chemicals that are known human or animal carcinogens and no use of atrazine.

Use of cover crops or assurance that at least 70 % of crop residues remain on the entire field to minimize soil erosion

Creation of farm plan that includes information on biodiversity, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions to help identify and encourage improvements in sustainability areas not currently addressed

At a smaller scale an initiative could be fostered towards the preservation of beneficial insects, which will reduce the use for insecticide and therefore prevent soils and water contamination.

It will also permit the production of organic products than can be sold under the name of the area. Farmers, NGO’s, the population, the consumer will all benefit from one single initiative.

1. Protecting a landscape, promoting a brand

“Vermont is a state in the north-eastern United States of America where dairy farming is the primary source of agricultural income. In the last half of the 20th century, developers had plans to build condos and houses on what was a relatively inexpensive open land. Vermont's government responded with a series of laws controlling development and with some pioneering initiatives to prevent the loss of Vermont's dairy industry.

The dairy barn remains an iconic image of Vermont, but because of a 87 % decrease in active dairy farms between 1947 and 2003, the preservation of the dairy barns has increasingly become dependent upon a commitment to maintaining a legacy rather than a basic need in the agricultural economy.

The Vermont Barn Census, organized by a collaboration of educational and non-profit state and local historic preservation programs, has developed educational and administrative systems for recording the number, condition, and features of barns throughout Vermont.

An important and growing part of Vermont's economy is now the manufacture and sale of artisan foods, fancy foods, and novelty items trading in part upon the Vermont "brand," which the state manages and defends. Examples of these specialty exports include Cabot

landscape certification programme

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Cheese, the Vermont Teddy Bear Company, Fine Paints of Europe, Vermont Butter and Cheese Company, several micro-breweries, ginseng growers, Burton Snowboards, Lake Champlain Chocolates, King Arthur Flour, and Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream”23.

Vermont is a very good example of a way to build a brand that will sell very different products by capitalizing on a symbolic and historic image of an area. Even though dairy farms decline was very important, public and private stakeholders decided to preserve this asset, this distinctive feature of the cultural landscape in order to promote a brand for the whole state.

Landscapes of the cross-border area should preserve iconic or symbolic products or craftsmanship traditions even if they are almost extinct.

This past has a value since it can help to build a brand for a range of products that will benefit from this authenticity, from this historical ground. In the same order of idea, a specific work has to be done on preserving the traditional transhumance road of the shepherds

2. The attractive landscape as a destination

The development of tourism in the cross-border area is a transversal priority and here landscape is a way to promote a destination, to mobilize different stakeholders in order to make them understand that each of their actions can have effects on other services provided by the landscape.

For instance tourism can be highly linked to the inclusion of landscapes in program as the Natura 2000 network24.

Initiatives as a thorough study of habitats and species in cross-border landscaped could be the opportunity to promote them and foster their inclusion in the EU’s Natura 2000 network.

Farming is also very important since it can contribute to the recognition of the landscape as Natura 2000 and High Nature Value.

Developing incentives and grants directed towards traditional farming practices could be a way to introduce ecosystem services and to promote the benefits of multifunctional landscapes

Thus the traditional designing of a landscape have a touristic value since the main target of cross-border destination is eco-tourist. Thinking the landscape as an eco-system has great value towards these tourists.

If we advocated a regional awareness-raising campaign, it was also to create an outside understanding of some of the initiatives in the region and the capacity of the population to

23 These specific paragraphs are mostly quotations taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont.

24 The underlining of the Natura 2000 network was proposed for instance by a Romanian applicant to the landscape award, the Fundatia Adept, http://www.fundatia-adept.org/, whose goal is “Conservarea biodiversităţii şi dezvoltare comunitară în Transilvania”

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welcome tourist and educate them to the uniqueness and ecological features of the landscapes.

Awareness-raising goes along with educational and training programs and initiatives. It could be done through the inclusion of this concern in classes, through local events and through publications as leaflets

This initiative is essential to gather local support for conservation and to foster understanding of its potential economic benefits.

VI. Conclusion We have now a better understanding of the European Landscape Convention and of its scope and objectives. A landscape has no definite border, it exists solely through the people interaction with a specific environment or area, and only the people through their awareness and commitment can really reveal a living landscape and value a working landscape.

The population’s implication in landscape policies is mandatory in order to achieve all the phases of its design and implementation. Thus landscapes are an opportunity to experiment new types of policy-making, close from multi-level governance, where every stakeholder can participate. This landscape governance has to be multi-sectorial because the landscape in itself has several functions. If only one function is privileged the balanced relation between nature and culture will be broken, the land will only be an object used and abused until no more of its resources will be left.

In a rather similar but more acceptable manner, if a landscape is frozen as if it was a painting hanged in a museum, this dynamic, the process of mutual benefits will be lowered in favour again of one single function, recreational or aesthetic. Multifunctionality is the best way to avoid pitfalls, such as exploitation or exhibition, generated either by greed or goodwill. It gives room to an everyday relation between the people and their landscapes, it makes possible that the goods and services provided by a landscape are beneficial to the overall well-being of its population.

Indeed when we are confronted to a virtuous circle where for instance a farmer produces organic fruits or dairy that are sold in local markets and that the quality of these products give a qualitative image to the area. We understand, in that case, that the more fully and diverse is the use of a land the more we can expect positive outcomes for our efforts.

When it comes to recommendations, to what people should do to implement in practices this quite ideal system of fair interaction with landscapes, the best answer is the most simple, they should be aware of it, of the place they live in, of the stakes they can hold to benefit from it. The European Landscape Convention is therefore an excellent framework because it highlights the urging need of awareness raising.

This specific measure that should take place in every landscape requires few expenses in the beginning in comparison with wide projects of rehabilitation and can bring back an important return on investment. Eventually the funds needed to implement landscape policies are in various form available through EU instruments since environmental incentives for a sustainable agriculture or funding for the preservation of natural habitats are crucial in the EU agenda.

At the end the collaboration between a conscious and involved civil society and a committed and well-informed public authority on landscape projects would allow the cross-

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border area to capitalise on this new scale of governance for its future economic and human development.

This prospective study of recommendations for the cross-border landscapes will therefore follow the thread of the main Council of Europe components of a successful landscape. We hope that this analysis and these recommendations will be the framework for implementing policies or measures in the cross-border area and that in the mid-term cross-border’s landscapes will be eligible for and winner of this competition.

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Recommendation 1: Creating a Romania-Bulgaria Cross Border Landscape award: The first step of a disruptive communication strategy

According to the ELC definition, a landscape has no objectives borders; it is a representation that is built by the population through its relation with its environment. Therefore, the landscape scale could be one of the most interesting ways to foster a cross-border policy-making dynamic that would be territorially and politically flexible and adapted to local needs.

For example, the protected Natura 2000 areas or the twin cities that face each other along the Danube riverbanks are managing apart a common landscape without any concerted or broad vision of the territorial externalities of their local policies.

If the ELC created a landscape award at the same time as it was adopted and not after the implementation of some of its recommendations, it is because competition is a key driver of human initiatives, partnerships and innovations. Hence the creation and promotion of a cross border landscape award as one the first initiative of the programme would certainly contribute to its success.

Firstly, the promotion of the award can permit to start a common awareness raising process by approaching directly local or regional stakeholders or indirectly by sending leaflets or posters to schools, libraries, museums, shops in natural parks. We can imagine that people will necessarily ask themselves simple and meaningful questions about this project: what is this award, what is a landscape and of course what is the prize at the end.

To explain the premises of our communication strategy we have to introduce a handy distinctions between two schools in advertising:

The direct one gives at the same time lots of information on the product, its promise, the reason why it works etc. Applied to the landscape it would mean the collecting and the transmission of a lot of well-organized and thorough documents to selected stakeholders.

The oblique one takes the time to tease and raise the interest of people. For instance it will reveal a new product in four different stages and weeks, raising the curiosity and the attention of the public. Indeed, our task demands an elaborate strategy especially in areas where stakeholders are not used and have no use of abstract concepts such as palimpsest or subjectivity. In fact the more complex are our tasks and goals the more simple and accessible we have to be.

The idea of the award is exactly to reach every citizens of the area and to communicate in a first time only a few information in order to raise questions and public interest. We wrote above about the idea of a caravan travelling across the area, it could be the second step of our strategy, the provision of more information in locations where the idea of the award was received favourably.

Indeed our limited means could hardly permit to visit every inches of the area in order to spread the “good news”, a first selection has to be made after a massive mailing on the award.

The goal of this first award should not be to find showcase landscapes, it should be to introduce the word Landscape in the vocabulary of each stakeholders. Maybe the simplest way to express what is a landscape is to say that it is a territory whose limits can only be defined by the people that interact with it.

In other words, it is up to the public to draw the lines and boundaries of a landscape. Therefore the landscape award will not be given to a commune, a judet or an oblast but to a specific group of people that organised themselves on a territory whose limits are not given but built through specific actions of preservation, management or promotion of the land or heritage.

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We cannot count at this stage on a mobilisation based on conviction but rather on a need for recognition, on the arousing of curiosity and evidently on the desire to win the prize at the end.

For instance we can imagine that we will send information about the award to the Nikopol-Turnu Margarele twin cities25. These twin cities show a real lack of synergy while their complementary advantages could be reinforced by a well thought and designed landscape policy. Therefore the material introducing the award will promote cross-border partnerships. Indeed the landscape award is more than a tool to put forward the agenda of landscape related policy-making, it is a very efficient platform for the introduction of the Eastern Danube Region brand.

In the case of these twin cities, the highlighting of the cross-border scale will be critical for the creation of a stakeholder’s networks on both sides of the river. Then, the key will be to raise the awareness of the population about their surroundings. Their perspective should be changed, this aggregate of historical ruins, bird habitats, fishing spots and factories should become a whole with a specific history and aesthetical harmony.

The proposition of an award, with specific guidelines regarding the drafting and implementation of a sustainable project, and the perspective of a reward both symbolic (promotion and recognition) and financial (funds for further initiatives), will certainly enhance the work of awareness-raising of these twin cities since they present a deep need for an efficient landscape policy.

Nikopol is a small city with a predominant Turkish population whereas Turnu Margarele is bigger and more industrial. Nikopol is more attractive for tourists because of its rich history but does not possess the infrastructure necessary to welcome them. An association of the two cities would be mutually beneficial and could be done on other projects, as a common brand for crafted products or a better monitoring of chemical risks.

The award is one of the key to create a new framework and if our twin cities decide to participate, it will certainly influence the neighbouring units as Belene - Suhaei floodplain or Gulyantsi floodplain area (Cherno pole)

Indeed, the key to build an identity is to be confronted to another one, competition creates by itself boundaries, a feeling of uniqueness or a common understanding of one’s territorial peculiarity above any official boundaries. Hence, local stakeholders will not simply, in the best case, share a common landscape but will jointly manage it, driven by the certainty that this unit has an genuine identity that goes beyond borders, languages or ethnic groups.

Eventually, years after years, the awarding of this prize will create and valorise a network of destinations and products encompassing the most important and most interesting landscapes in the cross border area, and connecting them with local thematic routes and with other transnational tourism roads such as the EuroVelo bicycle routes.

Hereafter the cross border network of landscape destinations will not only focus on the natural or cultural heritage sites but also on the human and historical components of the cross border identity and development with main themes such as social cohesion, minorities, diaspora or intercultural dialogue.

25 LU 69, Nikopol - Turnu Magurele cities, Romania-Bulgaria Cross-Border Landscapes Atlas, p 88-89

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Recommendation Nr 2: The creation of Cross Border Landscape Charts and Management Plans

If the landscape award permits the raising of awareness and the fostering of a landscape perspective with its subsequent communities of local stakeholders, it would be helpful to add specific requirement to the set of guidelines ruling the eligibility of a project. This obligation would be to write a covenant, a document that draw the lines of the landscape, the obligations of the stakeholders and the values and goals of this ad hoc association.

In the absence of a common legislation, cross-border landscapes ought to write their own conventions or charts in order to formalize the partnership between all stakeholders particularly in the case of Romanian-Bulgarian partnerships.

Indeed, one of the main conclusions of the cross border landscape atlas is that landscape challenges such as its preservation, its valorisation or its promotion must be treated at a cross border scale. The landscape atlas showed that numerous Natura 2000 areas, remarkable at a European and even worldwide level for their flora and fauna, face each other along the Danube and host similar protected species. Evidently the fauna and flora do not take into account the human artificial borders and protection measures should be adapted to this simple fact in order to be more efficient.

The situation is the same for the twin cities of the cross-border area. These urban areas are facing similar economic, environmental, social and demographic challenges and often do not have sufficient means to face them alone whereas they could find a helpful partner just across the river.

The Oryahovo - Bechet twin cities summarize perfectly these two pitfalls since the nearby Jiu Corridor and the Jiu-Danube confluence natural reserves in Romania and the Ogosta River and Ostrov area sites in Bulgaria offer rich habitats for protected species of migratory birds or for specific aquatic species whose protection has to be undertaken jointly26. Furthermore, these two port cities face exactly the same economic difficulties and could benefit from common initiatives or policies particularly in the development and promotion of tourism opportunities.

Other thematic examples can be found in most of the Eastern Danube region. For instance, Roman fortresses are usually situated in the vicinity of cities located on both sides of the borders as they were formerly integrated in a common network connected by trade and military roads. The Ulpia Oescensium - Sucidava old cities are good examples of the lack of synergies regarding heritage preservation and tourism promotion27. In that case, it is necessary in order to create a rich and attractive tourism offer, to develop tourism packages and even a common archaeological museum. Moreover, the preservation and renovation of their cultural heritage suffer from a cruel lack of funding which prevent any further archaeological diggings or renovation of the uncovered artefacts and buildings.

These two cross-border cases show us the multiplicity of situations where a landscape policy will necessitate a genuine cross-border cooperation. The absence of a common set of regulations calls then for the self-regulation of landscape’s project.

Hence, as soon as projects will begin their implementation, it will be crucial to draft specific cross-border landscape charts, regarding notably twin cities, Natura 2000 areas or cultural heritage landscapes, which

26 LU 76, Oryahovo - Bechet cities , Romania-Bulgaria Cross-Border Landscapes Atlas, p 74-75

27 LU 72,Ulpia Oescensium- Sucidava old cities, Romania-Bulgaria Cross-Border Landscapes Atlas,p 82-83

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will set out agreements between public and private, local and regional, Bulgarian and Romanian stakeholders.

This instrument could be used at a larger scale for major historical landscape units, such as the Danube floodplain, the Dobrudja plateau, the Black Sea shores or the Danube tributaries valleys.

These regional and local landscape charts should become the basis for the cross sectorial policies documents mentioned in the our third recommendation and will therefore influence the management plan of the Natura 2000 sites, the urban planning strategies of the twin cities, the environmental impact studies and even the building permits approval process.

Eventually these charts will be a sort of constitution for these landscapes, giving them a legal framework, yet artificial or informal, but still capable to give a legitimacy to the rights and obligations of all stakeholders. Later this legitimacy will be enforced by legality and will be the basis for the creation and implementation of a genuine legal framework.

Recommendation 3: Integrating landscape in Romania and Bulgaria cross-sectorial policies

In a first report called “Audit of the landscape legislation”, an analysis has been made on the Romanian and Bulgarian laws related to landscapes. Both countries are devoid of any specific landscape legislation even if in Bulgaria a landscape act proposal has been drafted by local associations but did not obtain the necessary political support.

Nevertheless, in both countries the notions of landscape and landscape protection are already taken into account into a broader legal framework. For instance in norms related to spatial planning, environment, agriculture and cultural heritage protection regulations.

The main challenge of the cross-border area is to find the resources necessary to propose new laws solely directed towards landscapes. Indeed, a landscape is unique, made of an encounter between man and nature, between history and a community but the formal concept of landscape in itself ought to be recognised by specific laws. At this condition it will be possible to increase the importance of landscapes and to transform a supposed minor or blurry issue into a strategic and definite one that calls for proposals and actions.

A first step would be to enhance selected urbanism and environmental technical and operational documents by increasing the importance of the landscape chapter in such policies as the urban planning documents, the management plan of protected areas or the environmental impact assessments studies. Then landscape chapters would be introduced in the high and medium scales territorial planning studies such as county/district territorial planning documents.

The question of territorial planning is crucial in some cross-border landscapes but unfortunately the area is more touched by the decay of inhabited houses and closed factories than by a chaotic and endless urbanisation. Yet this problem is present in very valuable landscapes as in the city of Veliko Tarnovo or in a great part of the Black Sea Shore for instance in the city of Balchik28.

28 LU 64,Predbalkan in Veliko Tarnovo region, Romania-Bulgaria cross-border landscapes atlas, p 98-99

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Indeed Veliko Tarnovo is one of the only cities that has seen its population growing in the past year and consequently construction has not been properly controlled. It is a good example of the ambiguity that the policymaker or any stakeholder has to face in the cross-border area.

Without any doubt, cultural heritage has to be preserved at any cost but Veliko Tarnovo is also an industrial centre. The city has to find a balance between tourism and its positive externalities and industry which gives a non-seasonal employment and an incentive for the youth to graduate from the university and to remain in their hometown.

The tension between the preservation and the development is one of the main issues that the idea of landscape can tackle by introducing its stress on balance. A balance between tourism and industry, between preservation and economic development, between man and nature, all these tensions are included in the idea of landscape management, knowing that the landscape has to work and to integrate mutations. Managing a landscape is to know how to regulate changes and to that purpose it needs a legal framework.

Its utility is double since it will give real means to control constructions and it will also help to strengthen the place of the landscape in the territories by giving it a legal value. Authorities will then be able to draw lines, to decide whether a construction is inside or outside an official landscape and to enforce the subsequent obligations.

Indeed, law draws objective lines and limits whereas landscapes can only give us a subjective idea of a delimited area. The preservation of landscapes and the management of these tensions will ultimately depend on the legal recognition of this concept and of specific landscapes’ regulations.

Recommendation nr 4: A multifunctional Landscape: The provisioning functions

1. The production functions

Subsistence fishing is still a widespread activity along the Danube river banks, its tributaries, and in the Seaside area. As we have seen, an accurate understanding and a comprehensive use of the multiple functions of a landscape are the key for its sustainable development. When only one function is privileged, it is both detrimental to the landscape future and to the population which becomes dependant to a single resource and vulnerable to its availability. The overexploitation of a single resource may also lead to the necessity to use illegal means to continue the same activity.

Indeed, some cross-border fishermen are endangering the birds nesting places and hindering the reproduction of protected species of fishes when they penetrate illegally in natural protected areas or when they use illegal fishing materials such as certain kinds of traps, seines and gill nets, double or treble hooks or shocking fish practices ( dropping electric wires to shock the fish).

These practices must be severely countered and the protection measures enforce drastically by local authorities. Still fishing is before all a traditional and legitimate activity in the cross-border area. Therefore, the answer to this issue cannot only be repressive measures especially since the public and private stakeholders in charge of the protected areas monitoring do not have the means and the capacity to strictly control large areas

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The challenge is to take into account the matter of functionalities in order to create new opportunities for fishermen. For instance, the tourism landmark of Tutrakan is its fishermen neighbourhood and the city is both a place of professional and leisure fishing29.

A further development of leisure fishing in this city would be a good opportunity to use this resource in a different and more sustainable way as this practice may imply that the fish is freed after being captured. This option goes along with the development of tourism and the valorisation of the fishing skills and experience of professionals since nothing can replace the transmitted heritage of fishing practices. This technical knowledge and some of its secrets, as “the good spots”, have a value and need to be highlighted as an alternative to intensive fishing whose only possible outcome is the disappearance of protected species and at long term of the entire sector.

Thus a landscape initiative would involve the fishermen associations and the local communities in order to create synergies between this activity and tourism. It will necessitate the acquisition of new skills by the fishermen but will give them in return a recognition of their heritage, of their ability and of their specific bond to their landscape.

2. The carrier functions

Important feature of the cross-border identity, agriculture is among its dominant economic sectors as it is also one of the principal threats to its landscapes’ preservation. As we have seen above, agriculture is the centre of the question of the multifunctionality since it is, by essence, the primary way to transform a landscape in order to benefit from it. In the area, intensive agriculture is widespread as the use of pesticides, one the most striking example of these excesses is the Watermelon area of Dabuleni30.

If we follow the guidelines of a sustainable landscape management, this unique area is dramatically endangered by its monofunctionality whose outcome will eventually be the exhaustion of its natural resources.

Thus a crop rotation system must be implemented in order to preserve soil quality and fertility and to sustain high production levels. A beneficial landscape initiative would be to find funds in order to increase the support to the research centre activities on the development of sustainable production and agricultural practices, on crop rotation and on the introduction of new crops such as sweet potatoes.

Another result of the watermelon monoculture is that the local economy is extremely fragile, depending on the yearly production and price level of a single crop. This second issue is broader since any landscape that is only devoted to agriculture increase its vulnerability to external events, such as weather conditions that can lower production but also increase it with the result of lowering prices. The population of Dabuleni needs consequently to diversify its local economy, for instance through the development of a rural tourism offer valuing the uniqueness of this warm unit, considered as the only desert in Europe.

Another opportunity to overcome intensive agriculture is the fostering of sustainable farming practices. This recommendation is common, easy to write but very difficult to implement. It means a complete shift of paradigm for a farmer that bought materials and supplies and that is asked to change totally his way of working. Though this solution is by far the best since it can be the starting point of a virtuous circle of development in a landscape unit.

29 LU 54, Tutrakan - Oltenita cities, Romania-Bulgaria Cross-Border Landscapes Atlas, p 112-113

30 LU 16, Watermelon area of Dabuleni , Romania-Bulgaria Cross-Border Landscapes Atlas, p 78-79

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Indeed the growing of organic products would benefit to the environment and to the preservation of the landscape.

Then these products would have a higher value on the market and could be used in local products promoting the area with a brand built on the values of ecology and authenticity.

The attractiveness of the zone would increase which would finally lead to the development of eco-tourism.

The ideal ending of this circle would be the building of small rural accommodations on parts of the former overused land.

This project can only come to reality if an incentive policy is oriented towards farmers and if a dynamic is started in the whole cross-border area. Stopping intensive agriculture costs money and if the farmer receives no compensations or incentives it is highly doubtful that he will, for the sake of the landscape, sacrifice its investments and jeopardize its income.

Recommendation nr 5: A multifunctional Landscape: Regulation & Habitat functions

The regulation function permits to enhance the integrity and the balance of an area and the habitat function to provide a shelter to animal and plants possibly endangered. At the opposite of the two preceding functions, regulation and habitat are not overused or promoted since they do not provide goods but services whose values are much more difficult to be assessed by the inhabitants of the area. Thus these functions are not stressed enough as a priority for the sustainability of a landscape.

In both cases the importance of forestry is critical, as in Ludogorie where the weak protection of the forest cover affects the fauna and flora habitats, damages the area’s green corridors and weakens the windbreak network protecting soils against erosion31. This unit suffers from a lack of strict forest management plans meant to stop illegal cuttings and poaching. The landscape scale would be ideal to raise awareness on this issue and to create, in a first time, a chart in order to protect the zone.

The Borcea Danube branch is also touched by this threat on its forest and shows more accurately the dependency of agriculture on the regulation and habitat functions32. Indeed any area where beekeeping is an important activity for the economy has to be aware of the danger of the use of pesticides in agriculture. The decrease of the bee population is also detrimental to all the areas where orchards are an important part of the agricultural sector.

The cross-border area has to take into account these two functions as it is a complex aggregation of inter-dependant ecosystems weakened by years of intensive farming, illegal logging, poaching and deforestation. Soil erosions, disappearance of beneficial insects and animals have consequences that people have to be informed about through specifically targeted awareness-raising campaigns.

In order to provide goods and services, a landscape has to be understood as a complex system where every detail can make the difference. Then a thorough study of habitats and species in cross-border landscapes could be useful to promote these functions as it can be an opportunity to foster new inclusions in the EU’s Natura 2000 network.

31 LU 57, Ludogorie, Romania-Bulgaria Cross-Border Landscapes Atlas, p 118-119

32 LU 30, Borcea danube branch, Romania-Bulgaria Cross-Border Landscapes Atlas, p 142-143

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In conclusion these two functions are certainly the most complex to assess and need definitely to be managed by specific local stakeholders as NGO’s or trained farmers that can grasp fully the subtle interactions that take place in their unit and that are critical for its sustainability and long term profitability.

Recommendation nr 6: A multifunctional Landscape: Cultural and amenity functions

Cultural and amenity functions are fundamental in the cross-border area since the development of tourism is considered widely as a key leverage of the economic revitalization of the area. It is true that, as any other functions, its intensive use is double-edged and can lead to an unbalanced and vulnerable economic situation because of seasonality or of diverse threats as uncontrolled constructions or damages caused by visitors.

Nevertheless tourism is commonly and wisely seen as the most effective answer to the focus on the production functions such as agriculture. It allows a highlighting of the natural and cultural heritage, a development of infrastructures and the training of the inhabitants of the area. Therefore tourism especially eco and rural tourism could only have beneficial effects for a unit, saving it from depopulation, environmental risks and even from a coming oblivion.

A good example is given by three landscapes presented at the beginning of the atlas: Ada Kaleh/ Simian; Iron Gates Natural Park - Orsova bay and the Drobeta corridor33.

These three landscape units are situated near one of the most beautiful and iconic part of the lower Danube, the Cazanele Dunarii.

The ancient island of Ada Kaleh is submerged and exists only through its ruins which were relocated and hardly preserved on the Simian Island. Yet they constitute a very valuable cultural and immaterial heritage as they are not only made of stones but also from the memories embodied in literature or paintings. The potential of this landscape is cruelly underexploited whereas it can be a supplementary asset for the attractiveness of the zone.

This disappeared city is situated between two other landscapes centred on the cities of Orsova and Drobeta Turnu Severin.

In Orsova the cultural and amenity function is not yet fully developed whereas it could be a major source of income in a city where the population has dramatically decreased by 37% between 2002 and 2011. The turn to the development of the tourism sector has been done although this potential is not yet fully exploited. The accommodation capacity or the number of trained tourism sector employees is not sufficient, in other words the infrastructures and the culture of a touristic area are still in development.

This problem is common to the whole area notably in units devoid of any urban centres where it is very difficult to implement tourism development programmes. Therefore it could be interesting to put some

33 LU 2, Ada kaleh / Simian , Romania-Bulgaria Cross-Border Landscapes Atlas, p 28-29

LU 3, Iron Gates Natural Park - Orsova bay , Romania-Bulgaria Cross-Border Landscapes Atlas, p 34-35

LU 5, Drobeta corridor, Romania-Bulgaria Cross-Border Landscapes Atlas, p 46-47

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of the resources of our awareness-raising initiatives into a specific caravan and training programmes whose purpose would be to inform inhabitants of rural zones of the opportunities, regulations and standards of eco-tourism.

As landscape management needs to always introduce the matter of balance in any initiatives, local stakeholders should also emphasize that tourism development is a means and not an end in the economic diversification of a landscape. Admittedly if tourism is the only function in a landscape, this unit will be dependent on seasonality or on external shocks as an economic crisis.

This question is well exemplified by the example of the city of Drobeta Turnu Severin. Indeed, tourism is priceless in such a beautiful and historic area and would be a good leverage to mobilize a community, to educate and offer opportunities. However a “museification” of Drobeta Turnu Severin would threaten its future and betray its past as an industrial and cultural centre of southern Romania.

A balance is therefore needed along with the counter-weight of a long-term and realistic vision of the area. Tourism creates infrastructures, permits the training and acquisition of new skills for the populations, then, it is more an opportunity, a fruitful investment, a chance than a potential risk. Here landscape management has to be pragmatic, to find the best solutions to the most urging issues of the cross-border area.

We see that landscape management cannot provide a handbook of typical answers, every situation being unique. That is the main reason why the ELC focused on local communities, because they are the ones which know the best their landscapes, its needs, its potential and its threats.

Through analysing these three landscapes, we have seen that Ada Kaleh/Simian can only exist through the development of this cultural function, that Orsova ought to take advantage of its location and to provide all the infrastructures necessary to the tourism development of the zone and finally that Drobeta Turnu Severin could not only focus on this function as its history, its political and cultural place in Romania could mark it for a key role in the development of the whole cross-border area.

These three different situations do not separate these landscapes but highlight their complementarity. Then an original recommendation would be the creation of joint initiatives and managing plans between neighbouring landscapes, in order to create synergies, optimal uses of competitive advantages and consequently to have a balanced development of an enlarged zone.

For instance, the idea of a Danubian Mehedinti landscape would promote tourism initiatives and offers as boat shuttles between tourism sites, commercial links between stakeholders of the units, emphasis on the common and diverse memory of the zone etc.

The potential synergy between these three landscapes is a perfect example of the spirit of landscape assessment and management whose boundaries have to be constantly redefined accordingly to every stakes, goals or issues faced by a population.

In that regard, the question of tourism is crucial because at the contrary of the resorts of the Black Sea Shore, most of the landscape units in the cross border area are unable to sale many overnight stay. They are more likely to be part of trails, circuits that will cross the limits of the units and ask necessarily a new form of cooperation.

To that extent nature thematic trails are very interesting opportunities for developing such partnerships. These circuits are meant for active tourists that travel for long distances using mainly bikes. The EuroVelo 6 route follow the Danube river from the west to the east and is a major historical route in the cross-

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border area. Highlighted in the atlas, the presence of this route can be a key leverage for the development of tourism in the less accessible and promoted units of the area.

Indeed, cross-border tourism targets mainly eco and rural tourists which are very close to the active tourist. They both need to be close to nature, to have an authentic experience and to meet the population and discover the folklore and local traditions of the region they visit.

The Eastern Danube Region is ideal for these tourists searching for wilderness, beauty and pleasure in food, wine or in nautical sports. The natural parks and the Danube can provide them a unique and holistic experience at the condition that they can prepare their journey, that information or accommodations are available in every town of a thematic trail.

The condition is cooperation, meaning that every landscape should not forget to see the territorial limits of its actions and the necessity to consider its neighbours as partners and not competitors. Finally regional and cross-border partnerships will be useful to build the best tourism offers and to show that landscapes constantly redefine themselves according to necessities and opportunities. Nonetheless, the units already delimited are the fundaments of these partnerships as they give to each of them a coherence and a weight in terms of natural and cultural assets.

If the landscape award was the first step of our awareness-raison campaign and was capitalizing on a competitive spirit, the following awards will certainly focus on this type of alliances and cooperation. Indeed, once people will be aware of their unit and of its limits, then they may consider the idea that a landscape is part of an area built on larger and more complex interactions and interdependencies, as for instance, the Eastern Danube Region itself.

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Annex 1: Assessment questionnaire for the implementation of landscape project

1. Is the project part of a sustainable development policy?

2. Does it contribute to the enhancement of environmental, social, economic, cultural or aesthetic values of the landscape?

3. Has it successfully countered or posed remedy to any pre-existing environmental damage or urban blight?

4. Can the project be considered of exemplary value?

5. Which are the good practices that it implemented?

6. Does the project actively encourage the public’s participation in the decision-making process?

7. Is the project in line with the wider policies implemented by national, regional or local authorities?

8. Is the project effectively increasing the public’s awareness of the importance of landscape in terms of human development, consolidation of European identity, or individual and collective well-being34?

34 These questions are part from the application form to the Landscape Award of the Council of Europe