Protected landscapes and cities are interdependent. Protected areas provide

valuable services for our urban population - ecological, recreational, economic - and the majority of people live in cities. It is from urban areas that visitor income originates. Many opt to live in high quality countryside and work in a nearby conurbation.

Increasingly we are being encouraged to see the borders between urban and

rural, between protected and non-protected, as porous and reciprocal. The

European Landscape Convention requires signatories - including the UK and

Ireland - to think about how all landscapes need enhancing and celebrating; and to bring people into the foreground of that work. What does this mean in

practice? How can protected landscapes work best with urban populations?

How should they respond to major growth plans? What can we learn from

Europe? These are some of the questions to be addressed in this seminar, which will incorporate a visit to one of the places in Europe where they are most acutely being faced ? Thames Gateway and the Kent Downs.

The event is aimed at advancing the application of the European Landscape

Convention by Protected Landscape organisations which border major

conurbations and interact with them.

The seminar program and registration form will be availble here soon.

For more information contact Dan Bloomfield, EAI Development Officer, at dan.bloomfield@europarc-ai.org .