Adaptation of the educational and scientific program «Nature resourse management, landscape planning and restoration of territories» to European standards

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to show how European experience was applied in the development of the educational and scientific program «Nature Management, Landscape Planning and Restoration of Territories,» and what competencies master’s graduates should possess.

Main Material. In the current realities of Ukraine, the content of the concept of «restoration of territories» has transformed. Today, it is a vast interdisciplinary field that takes into account geographical, environmental, technological, socio-economic, legal, and political approaches. The educational sphere of Ukraine lacks specialists with such comprehensive training. These should be a new breed of professionals, a kind of «generalist specialists» who must combine knowledge of Earth sciences, ecology, nature management, landscape planning, environmental law, urban studies, etc., with the best European practices, intensively utilizing European experience. Such a program is an investment in human resources for the «Rebuilding of Ukraine» project.

The article describes the experience of developing the master’s program «Nature Management, Landscape Planning and Restoration of Territories» within the specialty E4 «Earth Sciences», the content of which is based on an in-depth analysis of educational programs in landscape and environmental planning of European higher education institutions and a number of Ukrainian HEIs.

The disciplines of the educational program are grouped into six sections: Physical geography; Ecology; Environmental planning and environmental assessment; Geoinformatics and Remote Sensing (RS); Land use; Environmental policy and management.

A comparison of the competencies of this program with the competencies recommended for the educational programs of the specialties «Ecology» and «Architecture and Urban Planning» showed that training a broad-profile specialist in the field of landscape and environmental planning requires the development of an interdisciplinary educational program that would combine the knowledge and capabilities of specialists from the three aforementioned specialties.

We believe that the list of competencies that a master’s graduate—a specialist in the field of nature management, landscape planning, and restoration of territories—should possess must include integrative points, for example: a) to possess profound knowledge in the field of nature management, as well as urban planning and architecture technologies, and to be able to find a balance between them to develop environmentally oriented projects; b) to be able to adapt European approaches to landscape and environmental planning to the current conditions of territory restoration in Ukraine; c) to understand the specifics of environmental monitoring and to consider the geoecological principles of environmental development during the landscape planning of territories.

Conclusions and Further Research: In the context of Ukraine, the training of specialists in the field of nature management, restoration of territories, and landscape planning is an urgent task. As shown by the analysis of domestic and European experience in teaching educational programs in the field of landscape and environmental planning, the training of specialists in this area must be interdisciplinary. This means it is necessary not only to develop educational programs within specific specialties, such as «Ecology», «Earth Sciences», or «Architecture and Urban Planning», but to create crossdisciplinary programs that would proportionally, rather than fragmentarily, reveal the environmental, nature management, and technological foundations of landscape planning and the restoration of territories. For such bachelor’s and/or master’s level programs, licensing and accreditation conditions must be simplified. Otherwise, due to administrative, organizational, and legal difficulties, no Ukrainian HEI will volunteer to open such programs.