During the General Assembly in Manchester (september 2013), a new Executive Committee was elected. The members of this Executive Committee covered a wide range of disciplines and countries of origin, representing the diversity of landscape ecologists in Europe, including geography, ecology, social science, forestry, agronomy, landscape architecture and planning.
Teresa Pinto-Correia | President & Coordination WG1 | Portugal, University of Evora, ICAAM
Veerle Van Eetvelde | Secretary General | Belgium, University of Ghent, Landscape Research Group
Emilio Padoa-Schioppa | Treasurer | Italy, University of Milano-Bicocca, Research Unit of Landscape Ecology
Lone Kristensen | Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Geosciences and Natural Resource Management
Isabel Loupa-Ramos | Website | Portugal, Technical University of Lisbon, CESUR
Janez Pirnat | Coordination WG2 | Slovenia, Ljubljana University
Jonathan Porter | Communication and Events | UK, Countryscape
And also, the representative to the Council of IALE Europe:
Hubert Wiggering | Germany, Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF)
Most of the members were already part of the Executive Committee for the last 1,5 years and some were also even before, since June 2009. Besides having organized two PhD intensive courses and, together with ialeUK, one European Congress, the EC have worked in the past period towards a functional organization of this chapter of IALE: for defining clear Statutes; for structuring the relationship with both IALE and the national chapters; for establishing a clear the fee system; and for an informative webpage (www.iale-europe.eu). All this was finished in september 2013. Therefore, the elected EC looked forward to the following four years and to focus their energy towards new activities. They aimed to support a greater acknowledgement of European landscape ecology among the partners that may be interested in our work, and to develop activities that can support European landscape ecologists and attract younger researchers into the community of landscape ecology in Europe. They aimedto be a dynamic and inspiring association, developing activities in close collaboration with all European national chapters, individual members of IALE in Europe, and IALE. They very much welcomed initiatives of collaboration with European landscape ecologists and related stakeholders.
The Activity Plan 2013-2017
Framework
The European Association of Landscape Ecology “exists to foster and develop scholarship within landscape ecology throughout Europe by strengthening contacts and enriching the dialogue between members of Europe’s landscape academic community, by representing the interests of this community within the wider European social and institutional context and by making the collective expertise of IALE-Europe available, where appropriate, in furthering the discussion of landscape ecological issues at European level.”
The activities to be developed will continue to be framed by the “Setting the Scene” document, prepared and widely discussed at Salzburg in 2009, when the chapter was established. The ideas expressed in this document are also in the recently published paper: “How Landscape Ecology Can Promote the Development of Sustainable Landscapes in Europe – The role of the European Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE Europe) in the 21st century” (Antrop et al 2013, in Landscape Ecology).
Acknowledging the specific character of European landscapes and the consequent multiple research dimensions integrating the landscape ecology community in this overarching region, IALE-Europe has been created to represent consistently the common landscape ecology approach at the European scale.
Action plan
1. Working Groups: two of the current working groups will be continued and enhanced: “WG 1 Europe’s Stakeholders - Shaping future policy and science” and “WG 2 Education in landscape ecology – Sharing knowledge and experience”.
Instead of one coordinator, there will be two for each WG, one of them will be a member of the EC and the other any other member of IALE-Europe. The two coordinators should be committed to the goals of the WG, will make an activity plan for the period of 2013-2017 and should support each other in developing the required activities. Furthermore, the coordinator will engage other members to participate in the WG, to be able to have an active group.
More specific:
- The WG Europe’s Stakeholders will actively contact institutional stakeholders with a role in landscape policy and management, at the European level, in order to enhance the acknowledgment of landscape ecology possible contributions to the understanding and management of landscape all over Europe; it will coordinate IALE-Europe activities related with contact with stakeholders;
- The WG Education will coordinate the IALE-Europe activities related with education (like the PhD courses) and will organize a survey to collect information on courses of different formats which deal with Landscape Ecology and potentially co-organization of educational activities.
Other WGs can be created or reactivated, but only when the subject is considered of relevance for the aims of IALE-Europe and when there will be two persons, from different European countries, committed to their functioning.
2. Engagement of members: the EC will extend the existing list of members, from the different European countries, with their different roles and positions (researchers, practitioners, policy makers, educators), which would like to collaborate with IALE-Europe for the activity of the WGs or other initiatives of the EC. Members will be invited to support the WGs activities, to create new WGs, and participate in other activities of IALE-Europe to help build a lively organisation.
3. Individual members: To harbour all the individual members from regions or countries in Europe where there is no active national chapter, allowing their approaches and the landscapes they are working with, to be represented at a relevant scale. The EC will encourage people from the different European countries (including national chapters), with different roles and positions (researchers, administration, education), to collaborate with IALE-Europe for the activity of the WGs or other initiatives of the EC.
4. National chapters: The EC will collaborate actively with the existing and active national chapters to join efforts for the promotion of activities particularly relevant for European landscapes;
5. IALE-International: The EC will collaborate actively with the IALE-International in order to strengthen the impact of the landscape ecology research, education and practice, partially by supporting the recognition of the existing differentiation of landscapes and perspectives worldwide.
6. Thematic seminars: The EC will promote and support the organization of thematic seminars together with other partners in Europe, with particular attention to countries where there is no national IALE chapter;
7. Intensive PhD courses: The EC will organize, in collaboration with national organizers, at least one intensive PhD course per two year, on particularly relevant subjects in the European context, in different locations in Europe;
8. European Congress: The EC will promote the organization of the next European Congress of IALE, in 2017, in cooperation with the selected national bodies.
9. Website and communication: the EC will use the website and other web based communication tools for reinforcing communication among members and for others.