EUROPEAN SPATIAL RESEARCH AND POLICY Volume 21 2014 Number 2 10.1515/esrp-2015-0005 Peter KURZ*, Gisa RULAND*, Sibylla ZECH** TOWARDS GOVERNANCE FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF CULTURAL LANDSCAPES Abstract. Many (World Heritage) cultural landscapes are a living environment for thousands of inhabitants, visitors, entrepreneurs, farmers and other land users. In order to manage such land- scapes we have to consider the legal framework and the reality of the regional planning culture. The ‘landscape of regional players’ consists of a wide range of stakeholders. How should regions tackle natural and cultural heritage as an integrated part of regional development? The discussion of Aus- tria’s Hallstatt-Dachstein / Salzkammergut World Heritage region involves vertical and horizontal dimensions of governance, including politics, administration, private businesses and civil society. Key words: UNESCO World Heritage, regional planning, rural development, adaptive co- -management. 1. CULTURAL LANDSCAPES, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND THE UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE IN AUSTRIA The Austrian canon of cultural landscapes with ‘outstanding universal value’ rang- es from the alpine landscape of the Dachstein and the ancient salt mining town of Hallstadt, the fin de siècle summer retreat landscape around the mountain railway over the Semmering,1 the Danube landscape of the Wachau and the Pannonian cultural landscape of Fertö / Lake Neusiedl.2 Sadly it has not yet been possible to position a cultural landscape in the lower mountain ranges as a World Cultural * Peter KURZ, * Gisa RULAND, Vienna University of Technology, Department of Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture, Operngasse 11, 1040 Vienna, Austria, e-mails: peter.kurz@tuwien. ac.at; [email protected] ** Sibylla ZECH, Vienna University of Technology, Department for Spatial Planning, Centre of Regional Planning and Regional Development, Operngasse 11, 1040 Vienna, Austria, e-mail: [email protected] 1 With the construction of the Semmering Railway, areas of great natural beauty became more easily accessible, and as a result these were developed as recreational areas with the construction of villas and hotels, creating a new form of cultural landscape (Stadtland, 2010). 2 Cf. several research activities from Sibylla Zech in these world heritage regions, for example Zech et al. (2003). Brought to you by | Georgetown University Authenticated Download Date | 9/2/15 6:45 PM 68 Peter Kurz, Gisa Ruland, Sibylla Zech Heritage site. The Bregenz Forest, a region shaped by its traditional agricultural economic system and, in architectural terms, by its extraordinary merit in both historic and contemporary timber architecture, attempted in 2006/2007 through a committed regional development process involving many people, businesses and institutions from the region to become a World Cultural Heritage site, but was unable to win out on the international stage. There is a fundamental challenge facing Austrian World Heritage sites: in fed- eral Austria almost every legal aspect affecting spatial and thus landscape devel- opment falls within the jurisdiction of the provinces or municipalities. On the one hand this safeguards bottom-up processes, regional identity and initiatives. However, on the other hand it makes it difficult for regions equipped with only modest resources to compete without adequate support ‘from above’ (Republic of Austria) among candidates receiving commensurate support from their nation states (for UNESCO only national governments and not regions are treated as contracting parties). Each of Austria’s World Heritage cultural landscapes is a living environment for thousands of inhabitants, tourists, entrepreneurs, farmers and other land us- ers. These landscapes – often farming landscapes – are by their very nature not static, but instead reflect the changing methods of cultivation and management practised there. For its part, UNESCO has stated that the objective in these landscapes is not preservation but rather the intertwining of conservation and development goals. The strategy defined is one of ‘gentle development’ (cf. Rössler, 2006). The importance of cultural landscape potential for regional development in dif- ferent regions was recognized as long ago as the 1980s. Building on traditions of ‘independent regional development’ that reach back to the 1970s, different rural and urban regions rehabilitated their historic heritage and made it ready to play a part in their development, e.g. the Iron Road in the Eisenwurzen region, the tex- tile regions in the Mühlviertel and Waldviertel districts, and the Bregenz Forest. What all of these examples have in common is that the development of regional identities is taking and has taken place within broad regional discussion processes in which many local stakeholders with different backgrounds are or were involved. Practical experiences with the governance of regional cultural landscape heritage are closely connected to regional development initiatives, which to a certain ex- tent came about as self-help projects ‘from below’ in the rural regions and which have also received much attention and recognition on the international stage (cf. Heintel, 1994). In terms of the development of Austria as a tourist country, these initiatives for enhancing cultural landscape potential in economically weaker re- gions have provided vital stimuli. These experiences are an important point of reference for management plan- ning in World Heritage cultural landscapes. However, World Heritage status plac- Brought to you by | Georgetown University Authenticated Download Date | 9/2/15 6:45 PM Towards Governance for the Management of Cultural Landscapes 69 es further demands on their management. In the assessment by UNESCO, criteria such as ‘authenticity’, ‘uniqueness’ and ‘integrity’ are of great importance. The member states undertake to develop suitable management plans for the protec- tion of such areas. World Heritage management ‘best practice’ guidelines propose a strategy of ‘adaptive co-management’ for continuing cultural landscapes (Mitch- ell et al., 2009). One of the central challenges in planning the management of Austria’s World Heritage cultural landscapes has proven to be combining the top-down con- cept of the ‘UNESCO landscapes of universal value’ with regionally-established strategies for ‘gentle development’. The use of existing cultural landscape po- tential for regional development essentially depends on the strategic form of the management mechanisms: these include the interaction of formal and informal planning levels and instruments, cooperation and quality assurance strategies, the applicable regional institutional landscape, the historic structures and the planning culture that has evolved on a local level. In Austria these are diverse and individual as a result of the federal way in which the Austrian legal and planning systems are organized, as well as the cultural and geographical di- versity of the regions. As a result of this variety and heterogeneity, differing models of governance have developed in the individual World Heritage regions. For management planning it is essential to start with the regional conditions, tap them, build on them and also ‘adaptively and carefully develop’ the ‘social landscapes’ of the regional and national stakeholders in the sense of a ‘smart governance’ (Zech and Linzer, 2013). Taking various different examples, with the emphasis on the Hallstatt- Dachstein / Salzkammergut region, governance approaches in the management of World Cultural heritage regions in Austria are presented and discussed below. 2. BASIC PLANNING PARAMETERS FOR THE UNESCO WORLD CULTURAL HERITAGE REGIONS IN AUSTRIA Austria signed the UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention) in 1992. There are now nine World Heritage sites. At national level, a range of Federal sectoral legislation (Austrian Monument Protection Act, Environmental Impact Assessment Act – EIA Act, forestry law, water law, railway law, federal highways law etc.) has an impact on the devel- opment of World Heritage regions, even if it does not refer directly to World Heritage sites. The EIA Act is the only one where World Heritage is specifically mentioned: inscribed UNESCO World Heritage sites are named in Appendix 2 of Brought to you by | Georgetown University Authenticated Download Date | 9/2/15 6:45 PM 70 Peter Kurz, Gisa Ruland, Sibylla Zech the act as ‘Special Protected Areas (Category A)’. Cultural landscapes, and thus relevant ‘usage and protection’ content for World Heritage cultural landscapes, are primarily governed by the spatial planning laws, building laws and nature and landscape conservation laws of the individual federal provinces. To date, in terms of spatial planning instruments, only the development programme for Bur- genland has actively taken up the subject of World Cultural heritage. This pro- gramme firmly establishes zoning and the aims of management planning at prov- ince level. On the other hand, local spatial planning – and consequently land use and construction planning – falls within the competence of the municipalities. The federal Republic of Austria is subdivided into 9 provinces and 2,345 munici- palities (as of March 2014). Around three quarters of these municipalities have fewer than 2,500 inhabitants, and the autonomy of municipalities is traditionally attributed a high degree of importance. Cultural landscapes do not stop at mu- nicipal boundaries. The