Ireland's landscape is suffering because farmers, planners, and forestry and tourism bodies are working in isolation instead of together, according to the Heritage Council.
"Archaeological interests see it in terms of sites and monuments. Tourism sees it as something wild and attractive. The forestry industry sees it as benefiting from additional planting," the council says.
In a policy paper, "Integrating Policies for Ireland's landscape", published yesterday, the council stresses the need to move away from such "compartmentalised" views to look at the landscape in its entirety.
The report also calls for a review of the traditional approach to protecting the landscape whereby certain areas of particular beauty or archaeological significance are designated. This is seen as "too restrictive".
Although there is a body of legislation to protect the landscape, a lack of resources is making this ineffective, says the council, which suggests that financial incentives and educational schemes would be more efficient.
Mr Michael Starrett, chief executive of the Heritage Council, said the research showed that people "don't want the landscape frozen in time".
They understood that landscapes "have to change with time". The report highlights the view expressed by Mr Conor Skehan, joint author of a 1996 report on the landscape, that "if we lose the people and their links with the land, we will be left with just wet hills and lakes".
It also endorses Dr Adrian Philips's view that landscape "could be a key means of ensuring that heritage values are properly reflected in public policy" by providing a framework for society to interact with its heritage.
However, Mr Starrett said the pace of current development was "a real concern".
In a rural context, it needed to happen "more sensitively" with regard for wildlife habitats, archaeology and local inhabitants, he said.
Though Ireland enjoyed "dynamic economic growth", Mr Starrett said it could not claim to possess "a strong planning system and well-developed environmental policies to go with it, to keep it in check".
He noted that Ireland recently became one of only three countries to ratify the European Landscape Convention, which the council viewed as "a fundamental plank in the future management of landscapes".
Coincidentally, the convention was signed by Mr Martin Cullen, as Minister of State in charge of the Office of Public Works.
Now he is Minister for the Environment, with the Heritage Council under his wing.
Mr Starrett welcomed the move, describing the Department of the Environment as "the greatest single influence on the development of our landscape"; this would facilitate a more integrated approach.
In its report, the council calls for the identification of an agency to "characterise" the entire landscape within 18 months, according to features such as land cover, habitat types and topography.
The use of information technology would ensure that all of this information, when collated, would be readily accessible to relevant bodies such as Government departments and local authorities.
The report also seeks to reinforce links between culture and nature in its "living landscape" approach and calls for "landscape proofing" to be adopted by local authorities as part of their development plans.
Mr Starrett pointed out that 18 local authorities now employ heritage officers, as a result of an initiative by the Heritage Council, and that many are also moving towards a "heritage appraisal" approach.
Such an approach has also been endorsed by the Department of the Environment as offering the best hope of reconciling conflict between conservation on the one hand and development on the other.
Asked about such threats as "bungalow blitz", Mr Starrett said most local authorities still lacked landscape policies that would provide a strategic framework for decisions on development control.
