A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Virtual enclosure, ecosystem services, landscape’s character and the ‘rewilding’ of the commons: the ‘Lake District’ case
It is paradoxical that, while there is a generally increasing recognition of the scientific and cultural importance of conserving ‘semi-natural’ pastoral environments, and the negative effects of their widespread abandonment and overgrowth, British ‘rewilding’ activists and environmental managers are effectively advocating policies that will have a similar negative effect on the character of the semi-natural pastoral commons of places like England’s iconic Lake District. This situation, it will be argued, owes to the mindset of ‘virtual enclosure’ whereby the character of landscape is pre-defined by an assumed, behind-the-scenes, Euclidean/Ptolemaic spatial logic that leads to the comprehension of nature as a bounded scenic property; an (e)state of nature with its own economic system and services. This mindset is antithetical to both the practice of pastoral commoning and much contemporary natural science and conservation policy. It fits well, however, with older teleological ideas of nature, as well as modern ideas of privatisation, private property and management control.
Virtual enclosure, ecosystem services, landscape’s character and the ‘rewilding’ of the commons: the ‘Lake District’ case
It is paradoxical that, while there is a generally increasing recognition of the scientific and cultural importance of conserving ‘semi-natural’ pastoral environments, and the negative effects of their widespread abandonment and overgrowth, British ‘rewilding’ activists and environmental managers are effectively advocating policies that will have a similar negative effect on the character of the semi-natural pastoral commons of places like England’s iconic Lake District. This situation, it will be argued, owes to the mindset of ‘virtual enclosure’ whereby the character of landscape is pre-defined by an assumed, behind-the-scenes, Euclidean/Ptolemaic spatial logic that leads to the comprehension of nature as a bounded scenic property; an (e)state of nature with its own economic system and services. This mindset is antithetical to both the practice of pastoral commoning and much contemporary natural science and conservation policy. It fits well, however, with older teleological ideas of nature, as well as modern ideas of privatisation, private property and management control.
Virtual enclosure, ecosystem services, landscape’s character and the ‘rewilding’ of the commons: the ‘Lake District’ case
Olwig, Kenneth R. (author)
Landscape Research ; 41 ; 253-264
2016-02-17
12 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
| British Library Online Contents | 2016
Changing Landscapes, Changing Landscape's Story
| Online Contents | 2003
Changing Landscapes, Changing Landscape's Story
| British Library Online Contents | 2003