ILASA President Stuart Glen attended the IFLA World Congress in China recently. Upon his return he tabled the following report on the International Presidents Round-Table Meeting held in Suzhou, China.

As part of this year’s IFLA World Congress in China, the Chinese Society for Landscape Architecture decided to invite the presidents of their counterpart organizations from various countries across the world to a special “round-table” meeting to discuss matters of common interest.

This was a new initiative on their part – such a meeting had never before been held as part of an IFLA World Congress.

Apart from me representing ILASA, presidents from the national bodies of Australia, Chile, Spain, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Norway and Ecuador accepted the invitation. The president of the Landscape Institute of the United Kingdom could not attend because he couldn’t get a visa, as he also belongs to an organization called “Free Tibet”, but one of his colleagues represented the UK. Interestingly, apart from the president of the Norwegian body, the group was split almost equally into native English and Spanish speakers – and the US is soon to change sides, they say – although luckily everyone spoke good English except the president from Ecuador. So I have the (perhaps inaccurate?) impression that the Spanish-speaking world is very influential in our field at the moment. But think also of publications such as Paisajismo.

In the event, the meeting was split into two. It started late because the IFLA World Council session overran its allotted time span (a perennial problem, I understand), and some important dignitaries were awaiting us to start a welcoming banquet. This situation became the norm for us during our visit – some dignitaries, about whom we had not been informed, would be waiting to make us feel under-dressed after site visits at various (also previously undisclosed) locations.

The meeting was attended by the president of IFLA, Diane Menzies and our hostess in China, the President of CHSLA, Chen Xiaoli (or Xiaoli Chen, as we Westerners would have it). Mrs Chen explained that it was CHSLA’s objective to establish bilateral relationships with our national bodies, to exchange information and learn from each others’ best practice and technological expertise, in this, a “golden time” for the profession. Each of us was asked to describe the biggest challenges facing the profession in our country at the present time. There was a great feeling of solidarity as the same issues cropped up again and again. The most important ones were:
• Professional registration and right to use the name
• Education – establishment of faculties
• Government employment of LAs
• Small size of the profession
• Small numbers of association members involved with running the associations

In South Africa, it seems we are relatively well set up in terms of the first two points. Landscape architects in China do not enjoy professional registration on the same level as architects as we do in this country, and CHSLA’s main aim in hosting the congress was apparently to try improve the standing of the profession there and to encourage the relevant ministry to implement a registration system for landscape architects. And it’s not necessarily developing countries that are behind in these respects. I was astonished to learn that in Spain, and also apparently in France, Italy and Greece, landscape architects may not call themselves that because the word “architect” is so strongly protected. In Spain, they are still trying to establish an undergraduate landscape faculty.

I think what astonished all of us foreigners, even those from countries whose governments are major employers of landscape architects, was the fact that the meetings we had with members of CHSLA and faculty members from various universities were also attended by government officials. Of course the system of government in China is very different, and CHSLA itself is a government agency of a sort, its genial president being a government appointee and senior party official. But it is the close involvement and commitment of - and resultant understanding by – government that is making possible the rapid and large-scale greening projects that are happening in China.

I came away feeling that the biggest threat to the profession in our country is its apparent isolation from government, our biggest built environment employer. I stated in the meeting that I thought that our failure to attract black students to the profession was our biggest threat, but that failure means that there is also a racial divide between our white profession and government. The fact that government does not see the need to employ landscape architects in the Department of Public Works or at municipal level not only represents a direct loss of employment opportunities, but also leads to a lack of capacity to appoint landscape architectural practices to consult on government projects – to set up appropriate tenders and oversee the work carried out by consultants.

A side-effect of my trip to the round-table meeting was my first exposure to IFLA, whose main objective is to help member organizations to overcome local problems. ILASA was not represented at IFLA for many years before David Gibbs attended the world congress a couple of years ago and became our delegate. I am not aware of ILASA making use of IFLA’s influence and resources to help improve the professional situation of its members. IFLA does have international political clout – it has recently been influential in establishing a faculty of landscape architecture in Russia. ILASA should consider on which fronts IFLA can assist it, particularly during the 2012 World Congress, without hijacking the event as CHSLA has perhaps not unfairly been accused of doing.

- Stuart Glen
12 July 2010