Hamburg

Workshop discussion "Compensation Landscape": Final statement of the participants

The workshop discussion "Landscape Compensation" on 27 November 2019 addressed the practice of landscape planning, namely that the inventory and assessment of landscape areas is taken into account and processed, but the handling of a concrete compensation of interventions is to be classified as rather unsatisfactory. It was stated that there is a lack of methods for quantifying such interventions, for deriving suitable measures for a qualitative upgrading of the landscape elsewhere and, last but not least, for procedural implementation.

Prof. Dr. Michael Roth (Nürtingen-Geislingen University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Landscape Architecture, Environmental and Urban Planning) and Mr. Uwe Jansen (Department of the Environment and Energy, Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg) presented various methods for assessing landscape image areas and reported on their experience with landscape image compensation in various projects. It became clear that the required compensation is usually provided in monetary terms. In the concluding discussion, the participants exchanged views with each other and with the speakers. There was agreement that in future, interventions in the natural balance and the landscape must be treated equally, with functional compensation in each case; this must be taken into account and implemented more strongly than before in everyday planning and approval practice.

The following joint final declaration was drawn up:

• In the principles of the Nature Conservation Act, the physical and aesthetic aspects of the natural balance and landscape are treated with equal priority.
• A one-sided focus of the interpretation and practice of the law on the protection of physical natural features, also in the implementation of the impact regulation, does not correspond to these principles.
• If both the natural balance and the landscape are unavoidably and significantly impaired, both facets must be compensated functionally and equally.
• These requirements must be taken into account in administrative practice.
• In the FHH's special nature conservation and landscape management fund, compensation payments are also to be used specifically for measures to improve the landscape.

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