In contemporary Western societies, there is evidence of a widespread attitude
that landscape can provide visual amenity to a community, and a view can give value to
a vantage point, and each is therefore worth protecting. In question is the extent to
which visual amenity is and should be protected when it conflicts with other interests.
This chapter seeks to answer this question by considering the recognition and treatment
of landscape and the view by the law. If the protections afforded to the view by both
public and private law are weak, that is not the fault of the law. Rather it is a reflection
of prevailing attitudes. Landscape is valued in art and literature, and paid lip service in
planning legislation, but is not yet considered sufficiently valuable throughout
Australian communities to override economic concerns. If, as seems likely, natural
landscape and individual views become more rare, then communities will need to take
more active steps to plan for them and put them in place, and we will require different
and more forceful laws to defend them.
Keywords: Tree-change, landscape, visual amenity, Australian law, heritage,
planning.
