`HOW will we know it is Ireland?" That's the question Terry O'Regan, of Landscape Alliance Ireland, is asking. The organisation he founded aims to ensure that the headlong rush to growth doesn't leave us with an unrecognisable environment.
Four years have passed since the organisation, which has its headquarters in Cork, proposed that a national landscape policy be introduced by government. But it hasn't happened. And unless it does he sees serious difficulties ahead. Economic boom is one thing, he argues, but the Cabinet is not the board of directors of a corporation charged with creating financial success alone. There will come a time when the rising economic graph will fall. And when that happens, our landscape will be the barometer. It will tell us how well we have coped with growth and whether the best of our heritage has been preserved.
The alliance says it has already prepared the groundwork for a national landscape policy in the discussion document, Landscape Policy: The Why, the How and the Who of It, which was produced recently.
An all-Ireland body, the alliance was established in 1994. Plans include a week-long European landscape forum next year, to be followed in 2000 by gatherings of European and US landscape organisations.
In the Irish context, there will be meetings in the four provinces. The proceedings of all the meetings, here and abroad, will be published.
More immediately, there will be a landscape forum in St Patrick's College, Maynooth, on September 16th, 17th and 18th, which will hear from Irish and European speakers and will have a special session on the legislative framework which might be put in place for a pan-European landscape policy.
In tandem with the forum, there will be exhibitions featuring UNESCO's restoration work on war-damaged buildings in Croatia; an An Taisce project in west Cork on woodlands; a Macra na Feirme landscape observation project which will show photographs from Macra branches throughout the State depicting how the landscape has changed.
One of the exhibitions will be entitled Silk Purses from Sows' Ears, for which artists, landscapers and designers are being invited to submit designs. This aims to combat "the often dull, functional intrusive landscape furniture of today, such as letter boxes, telephone kiosks, litter bins, mobile phone masts, public seating, bus shelters, roundabouts, crash barriers, etc.".
Mr O'Regan has been a landscape horticulturist for the past 25 years. His mission reflects his passion. A European landscape convention is likely to be signed by member-states as early as June, by which time the Government will be required to have a national landscape policy. Wouldn't it be a good thing, he says, if Ireland had its policy document ready before that?
What are the concerns? "They are about urban and rural areas, whatever you see, wherever you stand," says Mr O'Regan. The planning laws are all very fine but they are not enough. The time has come to bring more creativity, more aesthetics to bear on what we build and where we build it.
Building must be more than about the planner and the engineer. People with the eye of the artist must be brought in; those who might be able to see the bigger picture, how a building might become a boon to its environment rather than a blight.
He says the alternative is a standardised, boring and often bleak landscape.
Mr O'Regan has been appointed to chair the Environmental Forum established four years ago by Mr Noel Dillon, the recently-retired Cork county manager. When he took office five years ago, local government was as big a problem as it is today - too much power in Dublin and not enough in the regions where local issues are better understood.
When he established the Environmental Forum, the aim was to bring together as many disparate groups as possible, including academics, industrialists, environmentalists, fishing interests and farmers "to take the megaphone" out of environmental issues.
Down the years, there have good reasons for using the megaphone, particularly in Cork Harbour, where people felt they were on their own against industry and the council was simply failing to discharge its duties as environmental watchdog. Mr Dillon agrees that there were valid concerns but says things have changed.
One such change is the arrival of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as an independent arbiter which has largely taken powers away from the local authorities and placed them with a body whose sole function is to police industry.
Arguments remain about funding and staffing for the agency but it has made a start in the area of licensing and there have been prosecutions against major industry - the Whitegate oil refinery spillage in Cork Harbour some months ago is one such example - though people still wonder why the EPA doesn't seem to want to impose the maximum penalties available under the new legislation.
The EPA counters this with the explanation that where the polluter admits wrongdoing, agrees to pay for the clean-up, and accepts that new pollution control measures must be put in place - as was the case in the Whitegate incident - the maximum penalties are not necessary.
So what are the main concerns to be addressed as Mr Dillon leaves office? Without hesitation, he says, it's "rural depopulation".
Cork County Council administers a 10th of the land in the Republic, a seventh of its road mileage, and a fifth of its coastline. It has an annual budget of £150 million. And because it is a large rural area, it has problems. As the cities continue to grow, there is a magnetic effect, drawing people away from the smaller, remote communities. They must be protected, helped to survive and flourish, says Mr Dillon.
Perhaps when an assessment is done of his stewardship, it will be seen that he left his mark, not by attracting huge projects to the largest county in the State, but by making his presence felt in the outlying areas where people felt they didn't have a voice.
Everything that can be done must be done by the council to keep areas like west Cork alive, he says. If that means extra subsidies for roads, water, tourism and other facilities, then so be it.
Cork's green belt is holding, he adds, despite pressures. Towns like Carrigaline, Monkstown, Blarney and Cobh will be kept apart from the city, to develop their identities and community spirit. So also will towns like Kinsale, Bandon and Macroom. That is vital, Mr Dillon insists, adding that keeping the green belt intact may test the will of council members who will soon have new powers.
Local government reforms now being prepared by Government will lead to a specialised committee structure overseeing designated areas. In Cork, the seven committees to be set up will be led by appointed officials. They will incorporate a broad spectrum of non-council personnel and will be policy-driven with greater influence. The traditional role of the manager will be diluted.
That's as it should be, says Mr Dillon. There will be more transparency, more outside influence on the decision-making process.
And under this new structure people like Mr O'Regan may find that chairing a body such as the council's Environmental Forum will lead to real benefits for the national landscape, a landscape which, he says, with the necessary will, we can still protect.