The Island Council of Tenerife, by plenary agreement of 26 May 2008, adhered to the principles, objectives and measures contained in the European Landscape Convention. (hereinafter ELC)
The ELC is an international treaty sponsored by the European Council, signed in Florence on 20 October 2000, ratified by Spain and that entered into effect at national level on 1 March 2008. Its objective is "to promote the protection, management and planning of landscapes, as well as to organise European cooperation in this field”.
The global concept of Landscape offered by the Convention, defined as any part of the territory as it is perceived by the population, and whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors, opens up a new way of approaching this issue. The landscape transcends the conventional concept of territory, placing great emphasis on the Population, on the people who inhabit the territory, who perceive it and who transform it. Likewise, landscape policies must refer to all landscapes, both those that can be considered exceptional and to everyday or degraded landscapes, and will not be limited solely to conservation, but will include planning strategies, which implies intervention to restore, improve or create landscapes, and management strategies, in order to guide and harmonise the transformations that are already taking place.
Currently, the responsibility carried out by the Conservation and Landscape Improvement Council is developed by the Presidency Area, through the Island Directorates of Development and of Roads and Landscape. The road network, among its multiple functions, includes that of being one of the main and most frequent platforms from which the landscape is perceived on a daily basis and is also an element that transforms the territory. For all these reasons, great attention should be paid to both the landscape inherent in roads and the landscape perceived from them.
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