CivilScape -We are the landscape people!

About

CIVILSCAPE is an international federation of 132 civil society organizations, public institutions and economic actors from 32 countries. This federation involves various members which dedicate their work to landscape protection, management and planning, according to the “European Landscape Convention” (Florence, October 20th 2000).

CIVILSCAPE is dedicated to creating an enabling environment for civil society organisations and citizens involvement, documenting the landscape communities, strengthening the infrastructure of the citizen sector , and promoting collaboration, both among civil society organizations and between civil society organizations, political or administrative bodies and other actors, to advance the public good in Europe and beyond.

“Landscape” means an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors. Therefore our activities covers natural, rural, urban and peri-urban areas. It includes land, inland water and marine areas. It concerns landscapes that might be considered outstanding as well as everyday or degraded landscapes. “Landscapes” are an essential component of people’s surroundings, an expression of the diversity of their shared cultural and natural heritage, and a foundation of their identity.

Benefits of your membership

A Membership of CIVILSCAPE makes your organisation a part of an influential, established and well-regarded network of like-minded civil society organisations. It gives your organisation access to a professional secretariat whose priorities are driven entirely by you and the other member organisations of CIVILSCAPE. Membership entitles each accepted member organisations to:

  • Find out about other organisations in our network with similar interests
  • Influence CIVILSCAPE’s agenda, working programme and future direction
  • Participate in CIVILSCAPE initiatives, including Working Groups and Task Forces
  • Initiate and endorse CIVILSCAPE policy statements
  • Receive information and seek advice from CIVILSCAPE
  • Liaise with organisations, administrations and universities throughout Europe through CIVILSCAPE’s sister networks UNISCAPE and RECEP-ENELC
  • Reperesent the CIVILSCAPE network as a member organisation on local, regional or national level.

Coaliton building and joint project development

Where there is a need and a will to work together, CIVILSCAPE tries to facilitate collaborative work between members.

  • CIVILSCAPE provide an independent forum where priorities can be discussed and agreed and joint positions on landscape issues can be developed and promoted
  • CIVILSCAPE create flexible coalitions and joined projects between member organisations and non-member organisations
  • CIVILSCAPE help members to organise joint projects on trans-national and European level and support applications for funding
  • CIVILSCAPE act on request as an observer in trans-national and European projects which include all aspects of reviewing, evaluating and publishing of project activities and outcomes
  • CIVILSCAPE help members to synchronise public campaigns to achieve maximum impact
  • CIVILSCAPE help distil a clear common message from our member organisations on important issues and communicate it effectively to key decision makers on European level
  • CIVILSCAPE organise public events like the CIVILSCAPE Landscape Forum to communicate a common message to the public or decision-makers
  • CIVILSCAPE co-ordinate the selection of representatives to attend external fora (i.e. Council of Europe, European Union and UNESCO) where a common agenda can be promoted.
  • CIVILSCAPE act as an ‘honest broker’ in the agreement of positions where our members may have different views about particular issues
  • CIVILSCAPE enable members also to collectively commission new pieces of research

All members have the opportunity to contribute to and support all joint action. However, as we work on a ‘positive sign-on’ basis, we always seek each member’s explicit support for statements that we produce.

All activities are reviewed and evaluated by our member organisations during the General Assembly. The General Assembly also discuss, recommend and agreed the next three years working programme.

Members

On 23 February 2008, representatives of NGOs (non-governmental organisations) from 6 different countries have decided to set up the association CIVILSCAPE in a meeting in the Villa Careggi, Florence. During the first five years organisations from more than 28 European countries became a member of our network – a community that is still growing and welcomes new members every month.

CIVILSCAPE is a network of member organisations where each of them have equal rights as members. Our member organisation are diverse in many ways which is reflecting the rich diversity of civil society in Europe. They are different in size, age, type and even focus. But all of them are dedicated to the implementation of the European Landscape Convention.

Looking for the different size our member organisations have, you will find organisations which themselves are formed by a small number of member organisations. While others have a national coverage through their members. In this way some of our biggest organisations represent more than 500.000 individual members in their country.

Our oldest member organisation was founded more than 200 years ago in 1807. Several are around hundred years old, but most are much younger. While our youngest organisations was founded just some weeks ago. Bringing these different member organisations together, offers a huge share of experiences, but also the novelty of emerging organisations.

CIVILSCAPE is formed by member organisations which are active on local, regional, national or even European level. Some of them are informal communities, while other are formally established as a legal body in their country. There are organisations which have individual members, while others are themselves networks of organisations.