Landscape Conservation in Belgium: Legal and Institutional Reforms and Future Prospects

Abstract

This paper reviews the legislation, the government institutions, and some recent developments, in landscape conservation and planning in Belgium. The overall effects of the recent constitutional and institutional reforms on the achievement of sound landscape planning and management strategies in the broader context of environmental conservation will be beneficial. This is because the decade-long disputes between Flanders and Wallonia over different orientations to landscape planning policies can now be resolved independently, suiting each region's specific environmental and socio-economic conditions. There is also scope to improve on, and to integrate, various government agencies and departmental environmental policies through the reconciliation of the exigencies of independently evolved and sometimes inherently conflicting laws and regulations. Thus, a great number of laws and regulations on scenic and heritage landscapes, the protection of woods and forests, the conservation of historic buildings and landscapes, the management of rivers and polders, town and physical planning, Nature conservation, and the re-allotment of land, contributed to the need to coordinate policies and to reconcile bodies of the public taking an interest in the promotion of the goals of these laws and regulations.