Abstract
The European Landscape Convention (ELC) has affirmed and legitimised the role of the landscape in the quality of life of people, emphasizing the importance of both remarkable and ordinary landscapes. Therefore, the convention should ensure that landscape issues are taken into account everywhere-in rich and poor regions and in different cultural contexts especially where the term 'landscape' does not exist in the local languages. We choose to study Mayotte, a French Overseas Department off the east coast of Africa, characterised by a particular territorial context with similar issues to those of the countries in the Global South. The aim of our research was to reveal how the concept of landscape is understood and defined by local public authorities and their landscape advisers and the extent to which the wider framework of the ELC is relevant to encourage landscape to be effectively taken into account in land use planning. Semi-structured interviews with 14 key stakeholders (local authorities and landscape advisers from mainland France) brought to light different ways of understanding the term 'landscape', and different approaches for including the issue of the landscape in land use management. The results show how integrating the issue of landscape can improve the quality of life in a poor region especially through the adoption of landscape tools. This adoption is still characterised by a top-down approach in which the French legislation and State services play an important role but which nonetheless clearly highlights the potential of these tools to coordinate a territorial project.