‘Guide to Impact Studies and Landscape Integration in Galicia’
Publication of a guide that considers the landscape of Galicia and the integration of constructions in rural and natural areas
Borobio Sanchiz, Manuel; Castillo Rodriguez, Francisco; García García, Miriam; López Bedoya, Juan, Louzao Pernas, Cruz; Nieto Zas, Encarnación; Pérez Alberti, Augusto.
Guía de Estudios de Impacto e Integración Paisajística en Galicia.
Edición: Xunta de Galicia. Consellería de Medio Ambiente, Territorio e Infraestruturas.
Santiago de Compostela, 2012.
ISBN 978-84-453-5037-9
Someone said that we are the product of our surroundings and, therefore, that our life is a reflection of how we treat our environment. The landscape is the mirror in which our way of understanding the world, of understanding
life.
Our landscape, unique and unrepeatable, along with our language, constitutes one of our national identities. The landscape is for Galicia a valuable heritage resource that contributes to the general interest in its ecological, cultural, economic, and social aspects. A resource, however, fragile and non-renewable, that requires our ethical commitment as a people for its management, safeguarding, and improvement.
This is the commitment of the Xunta and the reason to be of the Galician Landscape Strategy that calls upon the entire citizenry. Because without their participation, we would not fully respond to the essential principle of governance that inspires the European Convention and our own Landscape Law. A legal text in which the instruments for its protection, management, and planning are defined, including landscape impact and integration studies (EIIP). It is a document that is linked to the environmental impact declaration procedure, accompanying the environmental impact studies, although with its own nature and subject to a specific report by the Administration.
A new instrument that updates the perspective on the landscape that has been taken so far in environmental assessment, and that proposes a diagnosis, not only quantitative but also qualitative, capable of revealing the character of the places hosting the considered action. An instrument that ultimately invites a new approach to landscape management, in which
that accommodates many perspectives.
For this reason, it was deemed necessary for the Administration to take the first step by publishing this guide, with the aim of providing a methodological framework for professionals who have to prepare and evaluate impact and landscape integration studies in the Autonomous Community of Galicia.
The criterion used in its drafting was to create a document that is methodologically solid while being easy to read, based on the principle of proportionality. The content of the guide will have an indicative and educational value. It will be the responsibility of the drafting teams of the studies to adapt it to the specific characteristics, both of the action and the landscape in which it will be implemented.
Although it is a document aimed at professionals undertaking this work, the guide has been drafted with the intention of contributing to awareness and education in landscape matters, so it was prepared with language that is understandable and accessible to the general public.
From the Xunta de Galicia, we are convinced of the need for this approach of society towards landscape management policies as a mechanism for these to penetrate our customs and habits, thus achieving a greater understanding of the landscape, its values, and its dynamics, which will surely translate into a higher quality of interventions and a higher quality of life for everyone.