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SUSTAINABILITY:	A	POLITICAL	–	CONCEPTUAL
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49
Alois Hynek*, Nikola Hynek**
BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN THE THEORY
AND PRACTICE OF REGIONAL SUSTAINABILITY:
A POLITICAL – CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS
A. Hynek, N. Hynek: Bridging the gap between the theory and practice of
regional sustainability: a political – conceptual analysis. Geografický časopis,
59, 2007, 1, 3 figs., 38 refs.
The paper offers a perspective aiming to bridge the gap between the theory and
practice of regional sustainability. It does so by conceptual and political analyses,
which broadly divide the article into two parts. In the initial half, an analysis deals
with the concepts of environment and compares and contrasts the notions of regions
and landscapes. It nevertheless goes further in an attempt to transcend this
alleged dichotomy. As a part of this mapping, the differences between human and
physical geography are defined. Subsequently, notions of space and spatiality in
human geography scholarship are being examined. The first half of the article
concludes by tackling the question of what is landscape spatiality – or, can one
speak about spatialities of landscapes? The second half of the article reflects on
the practice of regional sustainability. At the beginning, the question of sustainability
pillars is addressed. What follows is an initial profile of the Vysocina Region
within which the authors gained empirical data from their participation in the
process of environmental policy-making. It is in this context that the regional
strategy for the Vysocina Region, specifically its environmental part is being analysed.
Subsequently, an analysis of expert and political framework in the Vysocina
Region is investigated and compared. Epistemic-community theoretical insights
are compared with the authors’ hands-on experience. In conclusion, the
summary of authors’ practical involvement in the Vysocina Region environmental
policy-making in light of a wider theoretical-conceptual context is provided.
Key words: politics, regions, landscapes, spatiality, sustainability
49
———————–
* Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic and Technical University in Liberec, Czech Republic,
hynek@sci.muni.cz
** University of Bradford, United Kingdom and Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic,
N.Hynek@bradford .ac.uk / hynek@fss.muni.cz
50
INTRODUCTION
The paper offers a perspective aiming to bridge the gap between the theory
and practice of regional sustainability. It does so by conceptual and political
analyses which broadly divide the article into two parts. In the initial half, an
analysis deals with the concepts of environment and compares and contrasts the
notions of regions and landscapes. It nevertheless goes further in an attempt to
transcend this alleged dichotomy. As a part of this mapping, the differences between
human and physical geography are defined. Subsequently, notions of
space and spatiality in human geography scholarship are examined. The first
half of the article concludes by tackling the question of what is landscape spatiality
– or, can one speak about spatialities of landscapes? The second half of the
article reflects on the practice of regional sustainability. At the beginning, the
question of sustainability pillars is addressed. What follows is an initial profile
of the Vysocina Region within which the authors gained empirical data from
their participation in the process of environmental policy-making. It is in this
context that the regional strategy for the Vysocina Region, specifically its environmental
part is analysed. Subsequently, an analysis of expert and political
framework in the Vysocina Region is investigated and compared. Epistemiccommunity
theoretical insights are compared with the authors’ hands-on experience.
In conclusion, a summary of the authors’ practical involvement in the Vysocina
Region environmental policy-making in light of a wider theoreticconceptual
context is provided.
As far as the environment is concerned in our theoretical terminus, it is essentially
confined to its meaning of anthropocentric concepts of human-nature
interactivity. In this understanding, landscapes can be conceived as mosaics of
spatial ecosystems. Regions are subsequently comprehended as either uniform
or nodal spatial organizations. While the former concerns the combination of
physical and/or cultural features, the latter includes an interdependent operational
connectivity of core, here described as a semiperiphery/periphery. Apart
from the above two distinct types of region, we can also distinguish a third, to
some extent less tangible type: vernacular regions. Vernacular regions have
been defined as perceptual regions that reflect people’s mental feelings and images
of their lived territories (Fellmann et al. 2005). Additionally, the distinction
between soft and hard sustainability will be made: Whereas the soft sustainability
is related to the environment, the hard sustainability makes its reference
to the landscape ecology.
For the purposes of this article, we employed our own heuristic framework
labelled RESPECTS comprising regional economic, social, political, environmental/ecological,
cultural and technological factors. The RESPECTS is a regionally
tailored version of a general ESPECT framework that can be used for
any spatial dimension from local to global scale. The term “sustainability” is
used in the original sense of Brundtland’s definition, before it assumed a denoted
meaning in a merger with neo-liberal international prescriptions (cf. Bernstein
2000).
Comparing and contrasting the now more discrete destinies of the former
Czechoslovak landscape ecology, it is quite safe to argue that Slovak experience
in landscape ecology and generally in the topic of sustainability is more ad-
51
vanced than in the Czech Republic. However with regard to the inclusion of social
and economic issues, more pragmatic Czech policy-formulation tends to
reflect these trends more. In any case, there are a number of authors from Slovakia
who have been an inspiration for this text (cf. Lehotský 2006, Huba and Ira
2006, Oťaheľ and Feranec 2006, Bezák 2006, Izakovičová, et al. 1997, cf. Urbánek
for a landscape synthesis concept).
THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS
Comparing and Contrasting Regions and Landscapes: Towards
the Transcendence of a Dichotomy
Contemporary regional geography is quite dominated by human geographers
studying so-called regional disparities (cf. Buček 1999, Blažek 2000, Matlovič
2004, Krugman 2004, Martin 2006, Poštolka, Šmída and Dítětová 2006, Sloboda
2006, Poštolka 2007). The reference point for this paper will, nevertheless,
be rather a distinction between regions and landscapes than a relative state of
the former.
As for the Czech tradition, Czech geography distinguishes between regions
that are predominantly conceptualized as human geographical objects and landscapes
which are seen to much lesser degree as influenced by human practices;
the former are usually studied by physical geography. In terms of urban and rural
studies, Czech human geography examines both urban and rural entities
whereas physical geography prefers to analyse rural landscapes and only rarely
the urban/suburban space. The following diagram (Fig. 1) portrays the above
distinction.
Fig. 1. Domains of the Czech physical and human geography
52
The regional versus landscape dilemma can be solved by a more productive
geographical approach, which will emphasize space as a fundamental research
entity.
We stress the phenomenon of a continuous transition which both human and
physical geographies have in common (i.e. the range from hyperurban to hyperrural
spaces). Such an approach arguably breaks ranks with the mainstream
Czech geographical practice in that it does not reduce regional geography to an
essentially regional physical geography. Our concept of regional geography is
thus wider (cf. Hynek and Hynek 2006).
Consequently, the discrepancy outlined above has informed our attempt to
overcome the traditional gap between physical and human geography by paying
closer attention to the conceptual interconnection of regions and landscapes.
One can thus say that landscapes are spaces studied with respect to interaction
between humans and nature, while regions are spaces of human and/or physical
attributes.
Notions of Space and Spatiality in Human Geography Scholarship
As the previous section stressed, in order to avoid a heuristically negative
dichotomy between regions and landscapes, the notion of space and spatiality
need to be brought to the fore. What follows is a conceptual analysis of spatiality
in the scholarship of leading human geographers.
Initially, spatiality is recognized by Gregory (2000) in human geography in
four main meanings which, at the same time, imply human and social implications
of space:
1. In the existentialist and phenomenological tradition (cf. Pickles 1985), understanding
of places and spaces in our immediate experiences can be conceived
as constellations of relations and meaning which we encounter in
our everyday activities. It reveals the human significance of contextuality
and cannot be understood independently of the beings that organize it
through “situating” themselves in it.
2. In structural Marxism, spatiality identifies the connections and correspondences
between social structures (modes of production or social formations)
and spatial structures. Lipietz (1977) claims that the concept of social
structure is dependent on and so must be derived from a concept of
spatial structure. Spatiality consists of a correspondence between “presence
– absence” in space and “participation – exclusion” in a particular system
of social practices contained within each level with its own topology.
3. Soja (1985) has developed Lefebvre’s vision of spatiality specifically for
socially produced space, effectively creating forms and relations of a
broadly defined human geography. We learn that while not all space is socially
produced, all spatiality is. Spatiality is both the medium and the outcome
of situated human agency and systems of social practices broadly
consonant with structuration theory. Its protagonist, Giddens (1984), rejected
the idea that there is anything intrinsic about the nature of space and
claimed that in human geography spatial forms are always social forms as
53
well as spatial configurations of social life – spatialities – are just as much
a matter of basic importance to social theory as are the dimensions of tem-
porality.
4. In post-structuralism, especially after Deleuze and Foucault, spatiality is
indicated as the way in which constellations of power-knowledge are inscribed
in space and through which particular subject-positions are constituted
and particular identities fabricated.
In addition to the above, Relph (1981) distinguishes between four different
sorts of space, or more precisely possibilities of knowing about space, with
one’s different relationships to places as a result: Firstly, pragmatic space which
has been organized by our bodily situation; Secondly, perceptual space which
is based upon observing through intentions; Thirdly, existential space is composed
of cultural structures as much as our perceptions, which are full of social
meanings; Fourthly, cognitive space is defined through ways in which one abstractly
models spatial relationships. It can thus be maintained that spatiality in
this sense explains how space and social relations are made through each other.
Another understanding of space, approaching the concept from a different
angle, comes from Hübner (1990), who argues that space is not simply composed
of a continuum of a multiplicity of points but is rather made up of discrete
elements, the so called témene: it is the alignment of the témene that constitutes
the spatial dimension. The same author further distinguishes between
sacred and profane spaces and also asserts that there is no single place.
The last point nicely fits with a postmodernist geography, here represented
by Dear (2001) who identifies three topical areas concerning our contribution.
With regard to the first one, the author stresses an increasing emphasis of the
discipline on the urban, particularly notions of cultural landscapes and the process
of place-making leading to them. Dear is interested in examining economic
landscapes of post-Fordist exchange, full of flexible specialization, with a particular
interest in global-local connections and the spatial division of labour.
Dear also studies the nature of ongoing philosophical and theoretical disputes,
especially those that are related to space and the problems of language.
Dear is by no means the only person employing the social constructivist approach
to human geography. As far as the mutual constitutiveness of space and
time is concerned, the most important thinker has with no doubts been Harvey.
This author (cf. Harvey 1996) introduces the idea that spaces and times, or
rather space-times, are not external coordinates, but are rather contained
within – or implicated in – different processes that effectively produce their
own forms of space and time.
What Is Landscape Spatiality, or Spatialities of Landscapes?
Landscape is a common word but also a geographical term. The latter usage
has been applied very broadly in various contexts: to give but one example,
landscape can be understood as an intersection of individual, formal or generic
meanings, which are – in our point of view juxtaposed, not contradicted. Landscape
is said to represent scenery, or sometimes is denoted as an observed or
observable territory in a single view.
54
Cosgrove (1998) has maintained that landscape is more about the way one
sees things, than as a ready image or object. Writings of both Barrows (1923)
and Hagget (1983) lay emphasis on the process of forging a relationship between
people and land, with the human environment as a resulting object of
study and human ecology as a discipline studying the former.
A different perspective is offered by Troll who investigated in his works the
complex of causal and reciprocal connections between biological communities
and their environment in a particular section of landscape. Troll’s usual analytical
level was the pattern of landscape ecosystems at the choric/regional level.
The paramount objective of such a point was to create a unifying approach
which would eventually merge natural science with social geography. It is in
this context that the notion of a complex metabolism between nature and society
underpinned by processes of reproduction and consumption is introduced.
Landscape spatiality can also be understood through an idea of territorial infrastructure.
Such infrastructure is constructed as a vital organizational landscape
to facilitate social production and reproduction. The relationships between
economic production, social reproduction and political governance are
constantly reconstructed, or in flux: Be it deindustrialization, urban sprawl, the
role of cities – for example, the shift from welfare to workforce. Cities are replacing
states in the construction of social identities, they are landscapes of social
production rather than reproduction (cf. Taylor 1996).
The perspective of landscapes as distinct associations of forms, specifically
between a physical and cultural dimension, is taken by Sauer. The author uses
the structurationist theory of Giddens, introduced earlier on, to demonstrate that
landscapes are products of cultures and also reproduce them through time. In
other words, every cultural region includes its matching landscape. This perspective
is further elaborated in the strand of human geography drawing on cultural
studies with its use of iconography and text metaphors for perceiving and
imagining landscapes (cf. Cosgrove and Daniels 1988). Crang (2001) explicitly
talks about double encoding of landscapes: Landscapes are understood as
wrapped in another representation, characterized by a simultaneous existence of
multiply environments, as a bank of cultural memories. There is also a moral
subtext to all the above since landscapes are seen as properties and an ethical
argument that they should be owned by those beholding them is being articulated.
The process of capturing and controlling the land thus occurs in a nonmaterial
way, through their representations in maps and in paintings as well as
through fashioning landscapes on the ground using design and architecture. The
landscape then, far from being neutral and inert, has social and cultural meanings,
a symbolism, hence the word iconography.
The perspective of land management framed by the state and shaped by the
economy stands out in contrast to this approach of understanding landscape spatiality
(cf. Blaikie 1985). This perspective has been paying a lot of attention to
the discourse on management; the problems of landscape can be solved through
the problem-solving managerial practices of experts. The important question of
how politics as policy of resource management and how control over the environment
is discursively constructed immediately crops up (Moore 1995, Leach
and Mearns 1996).
55
Moreover, there has been a motley bundle of geographers who have been
paying attention to both economic/material processes and discursive constructions,
with their interplay as the central issue. Crang (2001) evokes the notion of
palimpsest with the landscape as the record of change: Cultural values change
so new forms are required. This process is said to include past practices and
knowledge and features a series of layers – abiotic, biotized, biotic, anthropized,
anthropic, and noospheric. Cultural landscapes are concurrently conceptualized
as other spaces/places: They are constructed both materially and discursively,
with each construction affecting the other (Allen et al. 1998).
Finally, we cannot omit Foucault’s contention asserting that the operation of
power or the constitution of subjectivity is always connected to an examination
of how power, space and subjectivity entail production of space. This idea has
been consistently pursued by Latour (1993) who coined the term spatialization.
According to this author, spatializations are not just physical arrangements of
things, but spatial patterns of social action, a kind of embodied routine, as well
as historical conceptions of space and the world. Landscapes are subsequently
described as concrete instances of spatialization.
THE PRACTICE OF REGIONAL SUSTAINABILITY
The new public administrative division of the Czech Republic (2002) into 14
regions/NUTS III has been followed by intensive efforts appertaining to new
regional policy formulations regarding the European Union practice and national
tradition. The authors took part in the strategies and programmes of the
regional development of the Czech NUTS III, specifically the regions of South
Moravia and the Vysocina Region. As for the focus, the attention has been paid
to the section of environmental quality and sustainability. The European Convention
on Landscape and the Aarhus Convention have been applied in the
process of negotiation, which included politicians and public servants, experts,
civil groups and citizens. The issues of cultural landscape improvement, environmental
awareness, waste management, hydro-cycle renaturalization as well
as renewable and alternative sources of energy have been included in an everyday
environmental agenda.
How many pillars to have for sustainability?
The current concept of sustainability is a favourite bone of contention between
its defenders and opponents. In defiance of the latter, it is still a living
theme. Our contribution appertains to the deepening of the practice of sustainability
by several ideas and practical illustrations.
Having been inspired by the above authors, we advance a model of sustainability
in the spatial sense – ESPECT/ TODS. The matrix of the model consists
of six main poles through which “reality” is often depicted, though usually in
isolation from one another: E(conomy)-S(ociety)-P(olitics)-E(cology)C(ulture)-T(echnology).
The strategy of arranging them in a hexagon represents
an effort to overcome this usual isolation and lack of interconnectedness (i) as
well as to emphasize the equality of each and every node (ii). In other words,
these poles, or nodes, are artificial subsystems which try to paint “reality”
56
through their own intellectual categories and tools. One needs to bear in mind,
however, that while science is rough, life is delicate and it is the practice of
writing that rectifies this distance.
This is what the outer circle signifies – the wholeness, unity, or synthesis
through a two-way rotation which implies the need to overcome the dogma of
six artificial points of view. The strength of this framework in regard to the
outer circle and its underlying hexagon is grounded in the need to hybridize and
thus synthesize findings of six otherwise isolated subsystems into a single account;
we constantly need to be reminded and aware of the fact that phenomena
out there are not created through isolated intellectual subsystems, but are, in
fact, coproduced.
As far as the inner rhombus with nodes T(emporality)-O(ppression)D(ominance)-S(patiality)
is concerned, it is based on two sets of dyads (T x S;
O x D) and its function is to explore simultaneously the spatial and temporal
effects of the power/knowledge nexus. The oppression-dominance dichotomy
can be spatially understood as the relationship between centre and periphery,
and temporally as the real and imagined lived space in between them. It is also
the case with respect to the rhombus that the unity and synthesis is being
sought – this effort is again inscribed through a two-way rotary mechanism of
the inner circle.
Finally, the inclusion of both the hexagon and rhombus into a single framework
reflects the necessity for the researcher of investigating ESPECT and
TODS as parallel, complementary and interconnected systems since it is not
only through the synthesis of nodes, but also through an examination of processes,
which coproduce these geometric arrangements, that we can get a better
grip on the physical, social, and imagined “reality”.
Fig. 2. ESPECT and TODS
57
THE VYSOCINA REGION: AN INITIAL PROFILE
The following section provides the reader with a set of the main characteristics
of the Vysocina Region. In order to keep clarity at a high level, a condensed
form of bullet point will be used:
–Recognized as a NUTS III region, one of the 14 Czech NUTS III – administrative
units,
–More uniform region than nodal, almost spatially identical with the landscape
mesochore known as the Bohemia-Moravian Highlands – a mosaic
of forests, fields and villages,
–Step-like roof/horst between the Czech lands border mountain rim and lowland
cores of Bohemia and Moravia with four altitude levels from “dry
doormat” to “wet sponge”,
–Diffusions of innovation from medieval colonization, Theresian cadastre to
Industrial Revolution,
–Communist era (extensive industrialization, new neighbourhoods + second
homes, agricultural collectivization – large blocks of fields).
Postcommunist era (new industrial/entrepreneurial zones, hypermarkets,
“Beverly Hills” – new baroque settlements), new regional and environmental
policy in strategies, programmes, and projects of regional development in documents
covering:
– evolution of region,
– general characteristic,
– infrastructure,
– economy,
– labour market,
– social and cultural infrastructure– environment,
– recreation and tourism,
– searching for the epistemology for applied research.
The map below represents our cartographic knowledge base regarding environmental
issues in the Vysocina Region, NUTS III:
The practical procedures included practices of regional coordinating group,
consultants, knowledge base, frameworks and their SWOT analysis, strategies,
critical points, objectives, priorities, strategy of development, actors, regional
conference and implementation, policies, principles, financing, EU programmes,
frameworks, SME, etc. The importance of the local/regional environmental
experience, evaluation, problems and perspective was taken into account
during the agenda/setting and the process of policy-making. These activities resulted
in the creation of the final product, the Strategy for the Vysocina Region
(see below).
58
Fig. 3. Landscape spatial units – cultural landscape ecosystems of the Vysocina Region
Cities/towns
1, 5, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 55, 60, 70, 72, 80, 85, 90, 95, 100, 105, 112, 120, 130, 135
Forests
3, 8, 10, 13, 14, 22, 34, 37, 41, 49, 52, 53, 57, 63, 64, 66, 68, 69, 71, 74, 75, 78, 83, 86, 88, 97,
102, 128, 129, 133, 134, 138
Fields
2, 26, 35, 38, 46, 59, 87, 104, 121, 124, 136, 137, 139
Forests and fields
6, 12, 17, 19, 27, 33, 39, 43, 44, 51, 67, 71, 99, 101, 113, 118, 131, 132
Forests, fields, ponds
93, 94, 96, 108, 110, 111, 117
Fields, villages, forests
4, 7, 11, 23, 31, 36, 48, 54, 56, 58, 61, 65, 73, 76, 82, 119, 126
Fields, meadows, forests, villages
31, 42, 62, 77, 79, 84, 89, 91, 106, 114
Water reservoirs
21, 92, 123, (103)
Deep valleys
9, 16, 18, 24, 28, 29, 32, 45, 47, 81, 98, 103, 107, 116, 122, 127
59
Regional strategy for the Vysocina Region (2001) – part 4: Environment:
Target 4.1: Landscape sustainability
Measure 4.1.1: Landscaping renovation and protection
Measure 4.1.2: Water course network revitalization (hydro cycle renatu-
ralization)
Target 4.2: System of environmental awareness and education, Agenda 21,
NATURA 2000, Aarhus Convention, European Landscape Con-
vention
Target 4.3: Waste management, including radioactive waste disposal
Target 4.4: Renewable and alternative energy sources assistance
A 2004 update:
– New natural park “Javořice”,
– Intensive water purification and wastewater treatment plants,
– New generation of air and water pollution monitoring,
– Non-food agricultural production, e.g. energetic,
– New master plan for Landscape Protected Area “The Zdarske vrchy” emphasizing
landscape sustainability, e.g. introducing new agro-environmental
measures,
– Insisting on diverse tree species composition in forestry,
– Cohesiveness and balance in landscape sustainability planning preventing
deterioration and fragmentation,
– Limitation of megaprojects, amusement parks,
– More attention to limit denaturalization of landscape, pay attention to sensitive
combination of nature and technologies,
– To stop destruction of wetlands hidden under the veil of water course revi-
talization,
– Strengthen judgment of anthropogenetic landforms in procedures of the
EIA and SEA,
– Effective control of soil erosion, transportation and accumulation,
– Use land resources adjustment to improve landscape sustainability,
– Present Action plan of environmental education and awareness,
– Support best available technologies and tools for environmental control,
– Rules for the Vysocina Region landscaping with respect to its character,
– Achieving low waste society – reduce, sort, separate, recycle, reuse, treat,
– Maintenance of overburden waste-dump,
– Saving energy use and reducing use of fossil fuels,
– New grant programme to support renewable and alternative sources of en-
ergy.
60
Frameworks and the Process of Expert and Political Framing
in the Vysocina Region
Our practical activity was a part of a policymaking process and we were
looking for active politicians, professional, activists, citizens holding their perspectives
to join in our research focus on the Vysocina Region. The basis of our
approach consisted in the use of the ESPECTS framework. This framework has
been developed as a set of lenses which represents and shows some prevailing
categories and tendencies in the classification of things, events, phenomena etc.
The framework is a priori designed and aims to be as non-biased and neutral as
possible. This means that it attempts to avoid the pitfalls of perspectivism (some
a priori-chosen particular combination of lenses proportions) that would precede
an analysis itself. All possible perspectives are taken as legitimate, though, not
all of them would be of the same normative value in the later phases.
The ESPECTS framework has been specifically developed for scientific
practice purposes and as such it gives the observer a wide choice of points of
view. As far as the field of science is concerned, the objective is to keep all
lenses clustered in the ESPECTS in equilibrium. Therefore, the same attention
ought to be paid to all parts of this framework. The domain of practical policymaking
and politics, however, work differently. Science and politics can be
conceived as two different fields of human activity, featuring different criteria,
structures, mechanisms of socialization and actors too. As our practical experience
shows, these social fields overlap to lesser or greater extent and we can often
witness the process in which politicians turn to experts to ask for advice or
expertise (especially in unprecedented situations).
If this process becomes more solid and engenders somewhat regular interactions
over a particular issue, the scientific mechanisms change. For instance, if
the scientist is to be asked to supply the regional stakeholder forum with his/her
expertise and recommendations, the issue requires active political framework
for a subsequent political debate. In other words the scientist needs to create different
frameworks of the issue for different occasions. He/she needs to take into
account things like the composition of stakeholders present in the negotiation
and/or bargaining process, the prevailing patterns of the institutions where these
negotiations take place, the “history” of similar negotiations etc. According to
Hajer (2003), the public domain is “spaces in which people of various origins
deliberate on their future as well as their mutual interrelationships and their relationships
to the government” (here a regional one).
It was the nature of our scientific domain (its wide and in some sense overarching
scope) which played an important role in the expectations of the stakeholders
as far as our contribution was to be concerned. Thus, in order to meet
their demands, we could not be in an “only-expert” role. We had to introduce
and present some political solutions as well. Practically, we rejected Haas’s notion
of politically neutral experts who would withdraw from the political debate
when the first political contest occurs. Since our role was to provide the forum
of policy-makers (gatekeepers) and various stakeholders with scientific expertise,
we did exactly that. However, our role was not exhausted by this: we were
also representatives of a private regional research agency that had been granted
this contract. Therefore our final position/stance reflected both of these attrib-
61
utes. Consequently, we opted for James Sebenius’s strategy in which scientists
are an active link in a political chain and the task was to transform the scientific
facts into a politically feasible winning strategy.
This process of transformation needs to be understood as an attempt to persuade
or convince the other involved actors about the strengths of our proposal.
And again, for such a process, one cannot rely on a rather naïve notion of neutral
science. There is no such thing as a neutral science, it is always the level of
scientist involvement and the nature of the issue that influence (though not determine)
the style and strategy of the presentation of the issue. As the above
case shows, once the scientist gets into the political field and is expected to be
not just an active participant in the political debate but also a “solution provider,”
the creation of various political (not just scientific) strategies is a crucial
part of his/her contribution.
CONCLUSION: SUMMARIZING OUR EXPERIENCE OF PRACTICAL
INVOLVEMENT IN THE VYSOCINA REGION ENVIRONMENTAL
POLICY–MAKING
For the purposes of providing the basis for a subsequent discourse on environmental
issues in the area of the Vysocina Region, we have constructed a thematic
map which represented our knowledge base. The starting point of this
map was a presentation of the spatial pattern of land cover of the Vysocina Region
from various sources of data including remote sensing data, air photos etc.
Landscape ecology generally portrays landscape ecosystems. In the particular
case of cultural landscape it examines how humans use natural resources, so
that cultural landscape ecosystems (CLE) are created. A CLE spatial identification
depends on the map scale; in this case it was mainly 1:100 000 where they
are present as clusters.
Their recognition enabled us to gather, process, store and use data on CLEs.
We can utilize the information concerning their physical components
(landforms on rocks, regolith and slope sediments, soils, climate and hydrocycle,
potential and real biocenoses), human activities (agriculture, forestry, mining,
fishing, manufacturing, transportation, housing, recreation, tourism, nature/
landscape protection, etc.), and their spatially pronounced interactions which
influence both inputs and outputs in a two-way fashion. Any CLE belongs to
the chain of production, reproduction and consumption with its general, specific,
and unique position and focus. From an anthropocentric position, CLEs
are the part of the human environment.
Discourse on environmental issues of the Vysocina Region included various
individuals and social groups, politicians, experts, professionals, entrepreneurs,
industrialists, businessmen, workers, public servants/officials, juniors and seniors,
males and females, citizens of different social origins and experience.
Their environmental experience with the Vysocina Region was, first of all, local,
linked with their residence, service places, places of work, recreation/tourist
places. We hardly met anybody with full spatial knowledge of the entire Vysocina
Region’s CLE. However we did not forget to take into account the role of
specialists in agriculture, forestry, transport, health services etc., who knew their
field of expertise around the Vysocina Region. On the other hand, our position
62
was previously based on our own regional survey. All the above stakeholders
contributed by their own perspectives to the enrichment of a still ongoing discourse
and process of policy-making and gave us a good sample of the local in-
terests.
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Alois H y n e k, Nikola H y n e k
PREMOSTENIE TEÓRIE A PRAXE REGIONÁLNEJ TRVALEJ
UDRŽATEĽNOSTI: KONCEPTUÁLNA A POLITICKÁ ANALÝZA
Životné prostredie sa v tomto príspevku koncipuje ako antropocentrická interakcia
ľudí a prírody, krajiny ako súbory krajinných ekosystémov a regióny ako nodálne alebo
rovnorodé priestorové organizácie, ale tiež sa rozlišujú percepčné nárečové regióny.
Trvalá udržateľnosť sa zakladá na šiestich pilieroch, ktorých akronym ESPECT znamená
Ekonómia, Spoločnosť, Politika, Ekológia, Kultúra a Technika.
Ak slovenská krajinná ekológia predbehla českú, potom v našom poňatí sme za výraznejšie
prepojenie krajinnej ekológie s udržateľným regionálnym rozvojom, ktorý kladie
väčší dôraz na ekonómiu, avšak nielen na ňu. Ale to znamená, že nám nepostačí
64
napr. len koncept regionálnych disparít. Naviac sa krajinou v českej geografii tradične
zaoberajú zväčšia fyzickí geografi a regióny sú témou humánnych (v albertovskom ponímaní
sociálnych) geografov.
Kľúčovým geografickým konceptom je priestorovosť, ktorá v je v prípade krajiny
tak materiálna ako percepčná/imaginatívna, čo sa navzájom dopĺňa. Krajiny netvoria len
hnacie prírodné, ekonomické ale aj mocenské faktory – tie sú ich kultúrnou procesnou
priestorovosťou. To je dôvod na zavedenie priestorovosti, časovosti, ako aj nadvlády a
podriadenosti v krajinách chápaných ako produkty interakcií ľudí a prírody, zatiaľ čo
v regiónoch ide o integritu sociálnych procesov v širšom slova zmysle. V tomto poňatí
je možné to isté územie chápať ako krajinu či región podľa sociálnej konštrukcie. Faucaultovská
heterotopia vystihuje práve rolu moci v krajinách či regiónoch.
Uvedený teoretický princíp sa uplatnil v praxi českej regionálnej politiky okrem iného
v kraji Vysočina, kde sa podľa Aarhuského dohovoru navrhli a prerokovali ciele a
opatrenia environmentálnej politiky. Tieto sa kriticky a tvorivo ďalej rozvíjajú pri aktualizáciách
stratégie a programu rozvoja tohto kraja. Naša priestorová environmentálna
analýza Vysočiny sa zakladá na identifikácii krajinných ekosystémov, ktoré nie sú politikmi
prijímané (ani zo strany zastupiteľstva, ani úradníkov), ale došlo medzi nimi
k zhode o cieľoch a opatreniach environmentálnej politiky. Je to dôsledok zjednodušovania
a stotožňovania ekológie so životným prostredím alebo environmentalistikou médiami.
Pravdepodobne prvé uplatnenie Aarhuského dohovoru v Česku v praxi v podobe
stratégií a programov regionálneho rozvoja ukázalo silu rozhodovacej politiky, v ktorej
sa dokázali dohodnúť také rozdielne subjekty, ako sú poslanci, podnikatelia, vlastníci,
zainteresované osoby, neziskový sektor a úradníci. Samozrejme to bol veľmi zložitý
proces rokovaní, v ktorom geografia a politológia prekvapivo našli spoločný postup. Je
však treba oceniť krajských politikov Vysočiny, že preukázali regionálnu identitu a profesionalitu,
potrebné pre formuláciu a praktické zavedenie regionálnej správy, stratégie
a programu rozvoja kraja. Pritom sa napríklad riešili aj otázky (spolu)financovania environmentálnych
projektov, naplnenia „atómového zákona“, ekologickej osvety, a pod. Aj
keď ide o región Vysočina, je to predovšetkým Vysočina ako kultúrna krajina.