Civilization and the Landscape ' 



By Sylvia Crowe 



Past President of the Institute of Landscape Architects (British) 



[With 4 plates] 



The birth of a civilization may perhaps be defined as that moment 

 when men first become conscious of their surromidings. The sub- 

 sequent history of civilization is the progressive distillation of human 

 consciousness out of the background of the physical world. 



If we accept this, then it follows that there can be no civilization 

 without impact on the landscape, and further, that the more complex 

 the civilization becomes the greater this impact will be. One aspect 

 of this has been dealt with brilliantly by Edward Hyams in "Soil 

 and Civilization." Here are set out the interactions of civilization 

 and ecology and the effect on soil, fertility, and balanced landscape 

 of the demands which civilized men make upon their habitat. In 

 precivilization man accepts the landscape as his natural environment ; 

 he is just one member of a country's fauna. His impact is no greater 

 than that of other creatures. In too great nmnbers he will erode 

 his surroundings as too great numbers of rabbits will do, but he is 

 subject to the same natural controls as other creatures, and tlie land- 

 scape, given time, will heal over his depredations. 



Nomadic tribes depend on the power of the landscape to regenerate, 

 and both they and their habitat only prosper if the interval between 

 their depredations is long enough for the natural ecology to reestablish 

 itself. 



But civilization cannot develop under these conditions. It can 

 only grow by a release of surplus energy which allows man time to 

 think and to create. Therefore its first necessity is to find surplus 

 wealth and to use it to provide leisure and power. To acquire this 

 wealth one civilization after another has raided the landscape's capi- 

 tal, robbing it of trees, fertility, and water. But ultimately no civili- 

 zation can survive unless it learns to repay this capital and to live on 



1 Reprinted by permission of the Royal Society of Arts, from the first Reflection Riding 

 Lecture. The Reflection Riding Lectures are named after the park of that name In 

 Tennessee. 



537 



