Land use planning traditions

Land use planning traditions and their integration with nature conservation instruments - a comparative analysis of trans-boundary cases

Introduction

Land-use decisions are made at a range of nested scales; at the finest, individuals make decisions about use of their land. However, individuals are driven by a broad scale of determinants such as land management policies, economic incentives, societal structures and/or environmental ones. (Kuemmerle, et at., 2006). As local land-use planning traditions, multilevel decisions based on tenure schemes and/or influenced by the interregional or international layer, have also an impact on land cover changes.
So far, little is known about the effect of broad scale political – socioeconomic factors (despite the local ones) on land cover (Lambin, 2001). Investigating the broader scale factors through land-use planning traditions and nature conservation designations would aim at an alternative approach in studying areas in which structural changes have occurred through an intergovernmental instrument for sustainable development (SD)  and the capacity of (re)acting locally while planning land-uses globally. Assuming that a positive feedback from the implementation of SD planning instruments would result from the bottom up, into the land-use planning traditions and through the upper levels of land-use planning decision, a cumulative creation of sustainable places and thus development would result. 
Land-use planning and land-use management have been regarded by the European Environment Agency (EEA) (and by the local scale too) as essential to better reconcile land-use with environmental concerns (EEA, 2008).
Since the signature of the EU Treaty in Maastricht (1992), which clearly integrated the concept of sustainable development (SD), the EU Environmental Strategy has been oriented towards the Union’s territorial integration (Pypeaert, 2008). While land-use planning and management decisions are usually made at the local level or regional level, (with a constrained capacity to keep the ecosystems’ integrity), the European Commission (EC) has set the goal to encourage its members, to include environmental concerns into their land-use goals.
Barriers to integration between the natural and social sciences include institutional constrains which may be found at all political layers (Di Castri, 1984). While the EC and the EEA have regarded land-use planning and management as essential for SD, UNESCO, already since 1971, developed a tool which under the label “Biosphere Reserve” (BR), aims to test and build territorial approaches to SD. Under the UNESCO - Man and Biosphere Programme, BRs, as territorial systems which for SD, require the integration of the social and natural sciences offering its global World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBRs) as platform for the understanding and learning of land-use integrating for SD.
Since 1995, the BR model has been regarded by the Statutory Framework and the Seville Strategy as the territorial expression of the “pact” between the nature-human interactions for SD. As spatial organization models for SD, that are setup in core, buffer and transition area, it “supra-orders” land-uses according to: conservation , development  and logistic support .
Based and following on the analytical results of my M.Sc. thesis, the BR instrument is far the only intergovernmental conservation driven model that foresees and fosters the human interaction with ecosystems while considering a reciprocal and integral relationship for the mutual, nature-human, sustained well-being.
Although the most at hand manifestation of human intervention remains close to the concept of “cities” “settlements” or “urban areas”, these are defined by each State and while lacking in universal definition, remain, in most cases, different to the territorial manifestation and political/administrative layer from which the conservation instruments are dealt with.
“Local Governments” (LG), as territorial administrative and governmental units, may offer the link to the buffering relationship between the human –most local development goals- and those global conservations efforts. It is assumed that since BRs are leafing sites for SD, several lessons may have been observed and used for the diffusion of these practices. In this sense this would suggest that if the BR model is being interpreted as such, land-use planning traditions would have become influenced by the model and potentially better internalized for Regional, National, and Global SD.
Due to an increasingly changing environment it is worth to underline that land-use planning is considered as one among many factors for SD. This assumes that land-use planning foresees a regulatory framework on “where” the “which” land-use rights are permitted and thus the interrelation of different productive sectors with social and environmental values. The advantage of addressing the topic through land-use planning lies mainly on the comprehensive BR bio-regional zonation that allows a dynamic learning process and diffusion to other areas from the changing relationships between human the biosphere.

Objectives

Under the frame of the MaB Programme, the BRs (expressing their purpose in three different zones / land-uses) and assuming that land-use planning and management are essential for environmental integration; the target of the research is to identify approaches which are practiced, disconnected or integrated, with those land-use planning traditions within 3 different T-BR designations and their multilevel differentiations.
Its applicability lies on the research which, through BRs, may generate knowledge and experience that can be used in the wider land- and seascapes land-use planning. Considering that BRs are tools to support Nation-States to implement the results of the WSSD, the CBD and to work as "learning sites" for the UN Decade on Education for Sustainable Development the final target of this three year PhD research is the global civil society, as part of the ecology of the decision making process for development, which based on this research, may foster the integration of a global pact between nature and human (outside the conservationist boundaries), promoting its lessons into a broader cultural scale for SD.

Questions to be adressed:

• Which are the strategies used by governments, (local, regional-) for integrating the land-uses within the BR model and those outside the borders of the designation. Does the transboundary issue increase the participation and awareness about the complexity for SD planning?
• How is the scope of regional land-uses being organized and integrated into the BRs goals?
• How is this integration/disconnection of land uses, reaching the State levels as for using the BRs as learning tools for the National Planning strategies? (Bottom-up)
• How do Nation-States decentralize (or not) the BR model into the capacity of the local governments?
• Which are the strategies used for promoting, legal and financial incentives, the pact between human and nature?
• Which are the structures used to inform/communicate the BR instrument for SD so as their associated land-use zonation?
• What is the role of the main sectorial groups / associations within the BR for the integration of their economical activities into the objectives of the BR? (What is their position towards the BR) (SWOT)
• How do the territorial administrative units (e.g. local governments, municipalities, etc.) harmonize and adopt their land-uses for development under an intergovernmental UN-designation under the SD justification?
• How does the local level perceive its role for a global contribution?

Hypothesis

While BRs envisage a certain degree of land-uses and zonation for SD, local land-use planning traditions and their integration into the “outside” designation are a key factor for the sectorial/productive integration into SD policies and instruments. The “National-boundaries” platform represents a richer mix (starting point for multistakeholder participation) of cross disciplinary among the political and productive chain.

Methodology

• Survey and document analysis.
• Comparison between historical and present land-use plans (before and after BR designation) at the BR, local government (municipalities, Gemeinde, Städte, provincias) and regional levels.
• Qualitative and quantitative:
  - LG/TUA    – Survey, closed questions; scenarios (municipalities)
  - GOVs         – Survey, closed questions; scenarios (e.g. ministry of environment …)
  - IGOs     – Interview and survey; scenarios (UNESCO regional, UNDP field offices, UNECE HQ)
  - Other stakeholders: Interview (donors, academia, productive sectors, NGOs…)

Case studies

1. Germany: “Rhön Biosphere Reserve” (Biosphärenreservat Rhön) designated as BR in 1991. (BRD-DDR)
2. Mexico-Guatemala: Calakmul Biosphere Reserve (MX:1993) and Reserva de la Biosfera Maya (GTM:1990)
3. Balkan region: tbc Drava-Mura-Danube proposal (Croatia and Hungary mainly)

2008 - 2012

Comisión Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT, Mexiko), DAAD

Karl-Heinz Gaudry

Prof. Dr. Werner Konold

• Secretaría de Desarrollo Social (SEDESOL), Subsecretaría de Desarrollo Urbano y Ordenación del Territorio, Dirección General de Desarrollo Territorial - Distrito Federal, Mexiko
• United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Office in Venice, Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe (BRESCE) - Venedig, Italien