What does right to landscape mean? An analysis through the concept of commons. (original) (raw)

In this paper I will analyse and question the idea of “right to landscape” firstly by focusing on the concepts of common good/commons/common pool resources. Regarding the distinction among the previous three terms, I will take inspiration from the work by E. Ostrom (1990; 2009), by considering how she changed the idea of commons and the management of CPRs, after the great debate that the topic crated in the sixties (see Hardin 1968). The analysis of old and new commons shows that there is a specific idea of state, society, politics embedded in the different approaches in analysing and managing landscape. Furthermore, the management of landscape is related to a philosophical idea of state, values and democracy (Olwig, 2003; 2013). Nowadays the political implications of the concept of commons/common good are various. Through the concept of commons, several authors question the liberal theory of state in the management of land, and the fact that private property was often considered the only solution for both poverty’s problem and management of CPRs (see Caffentzis 2004; Hardt and Negri 2009; Harvey 2011; De Bollier 2012; Angelis 2013;). The literature on the concept of commons is currently thriving, and in this paper I focus on the specific relationship between landscape and commons (see also Menatti, 2013; 2014). In the contemporary era the main issues relative to commons are the exhaustion of natural resources and the safeguarding of cultural and natural heritage (both material and immaterial). I state that one of the ways to safeguard landscape is to consider it a common good and also a possible human right. The question is not trivial and it is open to debate. I will analyse in this respect the Unesco document called Florentine Declaration on Landscape (http://whc.unesco.org/en/news/943/). But it is important to remind that already in the European Landscape Convention landscape is characterised as common good (ELC: Preamble). The Unesco Convention clearly starts from these premises and tries to give a wider and more universal (but not homologated) definition of landscape. Relying upon a concept of landscape that is holistic, historical, dynamic, multicultural and adaptive, it encourages intergovernmental, transnational and public-private cooperation. And by stating that: “landscape is a common good, the right to landscape is a human necessity” it opens the debate for a new range of theoretical possibilities. The literature about this topic is scarce, although the book edited by the Cambridge Centre for Landscape can be considered an important precursor (see Egoz, Makhzoumi, Pungetti 2013). The crucial point analysed in the recent literature is the link between human rights and landscape. The right to landscape does not concern only conflict zones or native areas but, also and more comprehensively, everyday landscapes and environments that are threatened and damaged. In such a way thinking about landscape can be transformed into thinking about the ‘right to landscape’, for everyone and every society. On these bases I will argue how the idea of landscape as human right can implement and complete the debate about landscape and common good/commons.