[Tagging] Is landuse=conservation actually deprecated?

[Greg Troxel]

Joseph Eisenberg <joseph.eisenberg at gmail.com> writes:

> Is it correct to say that landuse=conservation has been deprecated,
> practically, by boundary=protected_area
> <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:boundary%3Dprotected_area>, even
> though that tag has not been approved?

Brief points (since I've said this before):

  landuse=conservation means that the primary human use of the land is
  to preserve it in a natural state.  It is not necessary for any legal
  protected_area status to apply for this to be true.

  boundary=protected_area signifies legal protection.  It is entirely
  possible for an are of land to be boundary=protected_area and also
  landuse=forestry, as forestry (actively managed for timber production)
  is not necessarily incompatibale.  Or other values.  Near me, ther e
  is a farm with a government-held Conservation Restriction that is
  squarely boundary=protected_area, but it is landuse=farmland (that's
  allowed by the CR).

  Therefore, while most land that is boundary=protected_area should also
  be landuse=conservation, and most landuse=conservation should also be
  boundary=protected_area, they are not the same thing semantically and
  thus one cannot deprecate the other.

  I have always felt that the deprecation was by fiat of the people
  pushing boundary=protected_area, with no real discussion, no vote, and
  no legitimacy.

  The entire situation o this alleged deprecation has felt nasty
  socially to at least me and I think others in Massachusetts where we
  have been using landuse=conservation for a long time.  Basically "we
  aren't listening; you are wrong, and we are going to revert your local
  mapper work that follows local consensus".

  It is a real problem that this alleged deprecation has made its way
  into editors, which combined with non-local paid editors amounts to a
  mechanical edit removing thoughtful tagging by on-then-ground locals.

  At least some renders show landuse=conservation.  The wiki should
  document existing use.  I am entirely fine with a "see also
  boundary=protected_area; land that is landuse=conservation is likely
  (but not necessarily) a protected_area".  Plus the corresponding back
  pointer.

While there are many pluses and minuses to continuing to participate in
OSM, overall this situation is at the top of my list of reasons to stop.

Greg
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 194 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/attachments/20201225/de060436/attachment-0001.sig>