Landscape dialogues - discussing landscape issues ith local people

Human impacts on landscapes pose serious threats to Central European landscapes (e.g. urban sprawl, land consumption and loss of landscape diversity and biodiversity) and consequently, influence quality of life as landscapes are a key factor in individual and social well-being and affect everybody. Therefore, public participation is an issue of great significance when elaborating visions and action plans for sustainable landscape development. In order to implement participatory discussion of landscape issues, "landscape dialogues" in the Austrian LEADER region Mühlviertler Kernland were organised in the framework of the VITAL LANDSCAPES project. The introduced method proved to be an adequate instrument to create awareness and to give local people a forum to elaborate on visions and concrete actions for sustainable landscape development. In the course of the "landscape dialogues", complex issues of landscape development, e.g. the renewal of village cores, the cultivation of low-productive grasslands, the management of small-structured landscape elements as well as the increase of renewable energy use were addressed and gave impulses in some involved municipalities to continue the discussion in communicative and participatory planning processes within the Local Agenda 21 framework.