Conformity in landscape: a theoretical approach and the Attert Valley Belgian Nature Park case study

Maintaining or strengthening the value of the landscape is quite a new issue for the council boards of Walloon nature park. This issue was reinforced by the 2008 Walloon decree, which requires a landscape charter to each nature park. This new topic poses the Park Council with the question of defining the type of landscape that should be in a nature park in Belgium. Two interesting viewpoints could be that of visual integrity and conformity. The paper questions the notion of “conformity” theoretically and empirically through the analysis of the Attert valley nature park (South Belgium). It analyzes more specifically the conformity with the natural environment and the economic context acknowledging the rule of the semiotic approach and of the management of landscape as an heritage.