The origins of the European Landscape Convention: the role of learned societies, interest groups and their partner organisations

The European Landscape Convention, adopted by the Council of Europe in July 2000 and signed by member states in October 2000, celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2025. However, its origins – in terms of the thinking, concepts and purposes of such an international charter, the initiatives and activities to shape a common understanding, and then influencing governments to approve it – began much earlier. A range of learned societies, interest groups and partner organisations involved with landscape matters, not least the Landscape Research Group, was central to this process, and to building support for the Convention after adoption. This paper relates that history, and reflects on the compromises that had to be made to progress the initial proposal to adoption. It reviews the extent of the Convention’s success, in the context of the significant changes to subsequent landscape thinking, notably in regional cultural landscape identities. Finally, the paper looks to the future and maintaining its relevance.