Discursive Relationships Between Landscape Science, Policy and Management Practice: Concepts, Issues and Examples - Landscape Ecology for Sustainable Environment and Culture - page 216

determining the future of landscapes''. This realisation has led to calls to broaden
the scope of the science to incorporate aspects of landscape planning and design. A
variety of strategies have been proposed, including adoption of multi and trans-
disciplinary research paradigms (Naveh 2005 ; Tress et al. 2003 ;Wu 2006 ), a
change of focus from 'optimal patterns' to a search for the dynamic qualities of the
landscape as defined by people (Haines-Young 2000 ), increased engagement with
social science in a 'translational' approach to research and practice (Mussachio
2009a ), participatory landscape ecology (Luz 2000 ), the use of a 'landscape ser-
vices' framework (Termouzuien and Opdam 2009 ), and incorporation of 'design'
as a complementary activity within science (Nassauer and Opdam 2008 ).
A common feature of these different strategies is the central role of landscape
scientists as experts in solving 'place based problems' in an instrumentally rational
way. Instrument rationality has been described and critiqued in the planning
context by a number of authors, notably Friedmann ( 1987 ), and can be charac-
terised along several dimensions. It works by identifying a desirable end state, and
then logically considers and evaluates different means to achieve the desired ends.
The emphasis of the approach is upon resolving choice and conflict as efficiently as
possible, and maximising the utility of outcomes. It assumes that the future is
sufficiently predictable to be able to make rational choices about how to proceed,
and relies heavily upon expert knowledge, methods and skills to identify and
realise solutions to place based problems (Alexander 2000 ; Allmendinger 2002 ;
Mussachio 2009b ; Amdam 2010 ).
However, experience from both rural land management (Duff et al. 2009 ) and
urban planning (Flyvbjerg 2001 ) suggests that in order to achieve 'deep' social and
policy relevance, it may be necessary to reconceptualise landscape science more
fundamentally within a 'deliberative' paradigm of knowledge and action (Forrester
1999 ). The deliberative paradigm places emphasis upon argumentation (Fischer
and Forester 1993 ), open discourse (Drysek 2000 ) and a combined 'internal and
external perspective' on the planning process (Stein and Harper 2003 ). It is based
upon what Flyvberg ( 2001 ) calls value rationality, where decisions are arrived at
through open, discursive processes in which values, objectives and means are
considered together. When expressed as communicative planning (Healey 1992 ),
place making thus becomes understood as a locally situated collaborative social
process with a significant learning dimension (Healey 1998 ) rather than technical
problem solving at a local scale.
The difference can be illustrated by a hypothetical example. Consider a rural
community faced with declining quality of life due to agricultural intensification
and its effects on the landscape. An instrumentally rational approach might engage
landscape scientists to measure public preferences for landscape, and to analyse and
identify a technical change to the farming systems that could reduce the impacts of
intensification upon those aspects of landscape that are identified as preferred by a
majority of people. For example, it might implement a stock effluent management
system to reduce nitrification of streams. In contrast, a deliberative approach using
communicative and value rationality would engage the community, the farmers,
and a range of experts in a series of workshops to identify and share understandings