A survey by An Taisce has found that only about 10 per cent of new one-off rural houses in Co Kerry have met their commitments to reduce their impact on the countryside by implementing landscaping plans.
Thousands of houses may have no planting of any significance around them, the survey found.
The proliferation of single houses "scattered across the countryside" in recent years is blocking views of the Co Kerry landscape and threatening the tourism industry, An Taisce warned.
The landscape is important for locals as well as for tourism and "should be considered as part of our heritage", said Dr Catherine McMullin, An Taisce's honorary planning officer in Co Kerry.
The survey forms part of An Taisce's submission to the preparation of the new county development plan. It said most one-off housing was sited "beside the public road, where they are fully visible and often cut off views to the land behind".
It said the planning authority normally required a professional landscaping plan with each building, but its survey indicated that "only about 10 per cent of these landscape plans are actually carried out, about 20 per cent of new houses have no planting of any significant size around them, and the remainder are only partially landscaped".
Statistics show that 2,678 houses were built in Co Kerry last year, almost half of which were individual homes. Almost 4,000 houses were constructed in the county in 2006, more than 3,100 were built in 2005 and 2,742 were built in 2004.The number of recently built houses in Co Kerry is several times the amount needed to accommodate the population increase, An Taisce said.
In some coastal settlements, so many holiday homes had been built that they far outnumbered permanent homes, it added.