36
O. Musard et al.
Within the framework of a marine protected area, this approach is all the more
founded. These tools can naturally provide guidance for the development of conservation and management actions. In addition to providing evidence of underwater
landscape dynamics and transformations, they bring the issues of natural heritage
conservation to light and can be integrated into decisions for marine biodiversity
action. Apart from Mayotte, other overseas territories are interested in this approach.
In a context of integrated coastal area management, various coastal and marine protection players in Réunion, Martinique and Guadeloupe regard these tools as a way
of establishing a land-sea continuum, by linking it to their existing territorial landscape photographic observatories and atlases. Internationally, the development of
methods such as the Catlin seaview survey (http://catlinseaviewsurvey.com) further
reflects this process of establishing landscape references for knowledge, mediation
or management purposes. The development of landscape indicators also contributes
to this overall reflection as does the integration of landscapes into ecosystem service
assessment (David et al. 2012).
3.7 Conclusion
As a reality structured around physical, environmental and human processes, the
underwater area naturally echoes issues surrounding landscape within the meaning
of the European Landscape Convention, while often demanding greater regard for
the associated conceptual fields. The operative issue of scales, the paradigm shifts
made possible by technological developments and, more generally, collective interest in pushing back the limits of the ecumene to move into new “territories of
emptiness” (Corbin 1988), offer a basis which will undoubtedly continue to expand.
Such territorialisation and concomitantly, such landscape representation, logically
extend a process of littoralisation from which an underwater dimension was missing.
The underwater landscape thus fits into a broader framework of reflection on marine
landscape (Parrain 2012) integrating the many dimensions of the marine area (surface, volume, sea beds) and belonging to the new forms of territorial construction
(Musard et al. 2007; Parrain 2010), in the manner of frontiers.
At the first World Congress on National Parks, this now undeniable mental and
material recognition of the underwater landscape was anticipated: “human-induced
pressure will gradually cause man to turn to the sea, and especially to the underwater
“theatre”, for cultural and recreational reasons” (cited by Beurier and Le Morvan
1980). The theatrical dimension is crucial in that, although the underwater landscape
invariably appears to serve as decorum, it particularly demonstrates the need for
cross-disciplinary interaction in order to assemble a mosaic that is far too scattered
for the purpose of studying and managing the marine environment.
Acknowledgments Olivier Musard would like to thank Jérôme Fournier and Jean-Pierre Marchand for the article published in L’ Espace géographique in 2007 which served as a basis for this
communication, greatly enhanced by input from the other authors.
O. Musard et al.
Within the framework of a marine protected area, this approach is all the more
founded. These tools can naturally provide guidance for the development of conservation and management actions. In addition to providing evidence of underwater
landscape dynamics and transformations, they bring the issues of natural heritage
conservation to light and can be integrated into decisions for marine biodiversity
action. Apart from Mayotte, other overseas territories are interested in this approach.
In a context of integrated coastal area management, various coastal and marine protection players in Réunion, Martinique and Guadeloupe regard these tools as a way
of establishing a land-sea continuum, by linking it to their existing territorial landscape photographic observatories and atlases. Internationally, the development of
methods such as the Catlin seaview survey (http://catlinseaviewsurvey.com) further
reflects this process of establishing landscape references for knowledge, mediation
or management purposes. The development of landscape indicators also contributes
to this overall reflection as does the integration of landscapes into ecosystem service
assessment (David et al. 2012).
3.7 Conclusion
As a reality structured around physical, environmental and human processes, the
underwater area naturally echoes issues surrounding landscape within the meaning
of the European Landscape Convention, while often demanding greater regard for
the associated conceptual fields. The operative issue of scales, the paradigm shifts
made possible by technological developments and, more generally, collective interest in pushing back the limits of the ecumene to move into new “territories of
emptiness” (Corbin 1988), offer a basis which will undoubtedly continue to expand.
Such territorialisation and concomitantly, such landscape representation, logically
extend a process of littoralisation from which an underwater dimension was missing.
The underwater landscape thus fits into a broader framework of reflection on marine
landscape (Parrain 2012) integrating the many dimensions of the marine area (surface, volume, sea beds) and belonging to the new forms of territorial construction
(Musard et al. 2007; Parrain 2010), in the manner of frontiers.
At the first World Congress on National Parks, this now undeniable mental and
material recognition of the underwater landscape was anticipated: “human-induced
pressure will gradually cause man to turn to the sea, and especially to the underwater
“theatre”, for cultural and recreational reasons” (cited by Beurier and Le Morvan
1980). The theatrical dimension is crucial in that, although the underwater landscape
invariably appears to serve as decorum, it particularly demonstrates the need for
cross-disciplinary interaction in order to assemble a mosaic that is far too scattered
for the purpose of studying and managing the marine environment.
Acknowledgments Olivier Musard would like to thank Jérôme Fournier and Jean-Pierre Marchand for the article published in L’ Espace géographique in 2007 which served as a basis for this
communication, greatly enhanced by input from the other authors.