Crucial Conversations

This March 2025 issue of our newsletter brings together crucial conversations at the intersection of landscape architecture, climate resilience, and urban development. Bernard Oberholzer’s piece on climate change, fire, and land use planning is a stark reminder that Africa is not immune to the escalating threats of wildfires. With increasing development in fire-prone landscapes, we must rethink how we approach land management, urban expansion, and ecological sustainability. His insights challenge us to advocate for planning policies that integrate fire ecology and indigenous practices for long-term resilience.

Meanwhile, as the IFLA Africa Conference 2025 approaches, we are excited about the Student Competition and the broader theme of Reframing the African Landscape. This is an invitation to critically examine how we teach, practice, and envision landscape architecture across the continent, with an emphasis on climate adaptation, cultural heritage, and inclusive design.

The recently concluded African Landscape Architecture: Alternative Future for the Field conference at Harvard GSD provided a platform for some of the most thought-provoking discussions on the future of our profession. Reflections from leading voices—Dr. Finzi Saidi, Arthur Adeya, Carey Duncan, and our IFLA Africa President, Graham Young—underscore the urgent need to define African landscape architecture on its own terms. Themes of post-colonial practice, indigenous knowledge integration, and education reform were at the forefront, reinforcing the necessity of a locally rooted, globally relevant discipline.

As we move forward, as Graham Young said, our profession must seamlessly blend vision and practicality—crafting breathtaking landscapes that also address Africa’s urgent environmental and urban challenges. We invite you to stay involved, join upcoming events, and actively contribute to the evolving dialogue shaping the future of landscape architecture across the continent.

Let’s keep the conversations going and the momentum growing, till next month.