The SEQ Regional Landscape Framework: Is Practice Ahead of Theory?

Current research into the peri-urbanisation associated with the rapid population growth of preferred Australian metropolitan regions has shown that their landscape values are put at risk and the region's quality of life (QoL) and the community's standards of liveability are consequently threatened. Whilst the concept of a landscape framework as an analytical, policy and management tool has general acceptance, there appears to be few if any working examples where this concept has been operationalised. To date, the conventional approaches utilised by regional planning agencies and local government have not been able to deliver the necessary tools to incorporate the essential landscape planning principles let alone planning processes to address the regional landscape values at risk in the peri-urban areas of rapidly growing regions. However, promising initiatives have emerged from allied planning fields such as landscape planning. Despite shortcomings in the theoretical development of this conceptual framework, a regional landscape framework has been incorporated into the recently released SEQ Regional Plan 2005-2026, a statutory planning instrument for the South East Queensland (SEQ) region, Australia's fastest growing metropolitan region. Whilst it is conceivable that in the SEQ case, practice may be ahead of theory, there is now an imperative to develop this framework in a manner that it can be utilised as a regional policy framework and as an integrating instrument to address the values of regional landscapes including the range of existing and emerging rural values of the critical urban-rural interface.