It was a busy week for Zoom, with virtual meetings over three days to enable NZILA participation in both the IFLA Asia-Pacific Region (APR) Council meeting, and the IFLA World Council meeting.

The IFLA APR Council meeting

It was held first on 13 August, opening with a recorded message from the retiring president Fumiaki Takano. Takano-san was unable to attend in person due to illness, but he was very positive about the significant role that landscape architects have to play in a Covid-19 world. We are sad to report that Takano-san passed away peacefully on 31 August; we were privileged to have him as our regional president for those two years.

The meeting marked another milestone for the APR, with not only delegates in attendance from every one of the 14 associations in our region, but also observers from six other nations in our region who are yet to join IFLA. Two of them are in a good position to join IFLA soon, with Bangladesh and Mongolia already having their own landscape associations. Both are now working towards ratifying constitutions based on the IFLA model, to enable their applications to become full members of IFLA. That will automatically make them members of the APR and we look forward to seeing their delegates at our council meeting this time next year.

IFLA APR election outcomes

We are pleased to be able to report the official outcomes of our 2021 election cycle, welcoming Monica Kuo from CTLAS in Taiwan for a two-year term as our next IFLA APR President. Monica is the Chair and Dean of the Department of Landscape Architecture in the Environmental Planning & Design College at the Chinese Culture University in Taipei. In the manifesto accompanying her nomination for the president's role, Monica noted that 'PEACE' would be the benchmark for her tenure: Passion, Ecology, Aesthetics, Creativity, and Ethics. Chris Tidswell, from AILA, was elected to the Honary Secretary position; Mike Barthelmeh had completed the maximum of two, two-year terms and gratefully passed that baton to Chris. To complete the Executive Committee line-up, Kuang-Yu from CTLAS continues for another term as Treasurer. 

As previously reported, two of our standing committee chairs were elected to continue for their second two-year terms: Chair, Communication and External Relations (CER) Committee, Mr Bosco So Ho Lung (HKILA), and Chair, Finance and Business Planning (FBP) Committee, Mr Damian Tang (SILA), while two other chairs were standing unopposed and so also continue for their second two-year terms: Chair, Education and Academic Affairs (EAA) Committee, Xi Zheng (CHSLA), and Chair, Professional Practice and Policy (PPP) Committee, Takanori Fukuoka (JLAU). In regard to our two active working groups under the PPP committee, Kiyohito Tamotsu (JLAU) was elected as Chair of Landscape Architects Without Borders (LAWB) for his first term, and Claire Martin (AILA) continued as Chair of the Climate Change committee. Claire has been seeking wider membership for her committee from all of the associations which are part of the APR; Matthew Bradbury has agreed to join the Climate Change committee on behalf of NZILA.

Legacy initiatives

Part of Takano-san's legacy was to initiate two further matters for the APR. The first was for an advisory group, which has been formed to provide advice to the Executive Committee or the President as required, with membership of the committee formed from those with specific expertise in the areas of advice sought. Past President Damian Tang (SILA) has agreed to take on the role of chairing that committee. The second initiative was to establish a President's award, to recognise exceptional service in furthering the aims or undertaking outstanding management of the APR. We were very pleased to hear that Damian Tang was announced as being the initial recipient of the award. Damian has undertaken an amazing range of work for the region, including establishing and running the APR awards for the past four years (putting the region on a sound financial footing), setting up the Young Landscape Architect Alliance (YLAA), and managing the student design competitions run in conjunction with the annual council and congress meetings. Note: that it is free to join the YLAA and gain new contacts with other young professionals around our region… check the IFLA APR website for details.

Standing Committee reports

The four Standing Committees reported on their activities; more detail will be available from the APR website once the minutes have been confirmed by Executive Committee. If you are keen to join any of those committees, they would welcome your input, so please contact the chairs direct. The chair of CER reported on a successful year with the e-communication strategies developed with our secretariat, noting we now have over 12,000 subscribers to the monthly newsletters (available each month on the NZILA website). Bosco made a call for suggestions on further topics for the newsletter's focus editions, so again please contact him direct if you have any ideas.

The chair of EAA has begun connecting with programme heads across the region to develop further education initiatives and is keen to connect with all of them, if possible. He reported on a virtual simulation platform hosted by Beijing Forestry University, an education resource that is now available to all, with quite a bit of English language content - although the tutorial video needs a good understanding of Mandarin. 

The chair of FBP presented a series of strategies to strengthen the financial foundations of the APR, but we are in an excellent position at the moment, sufficient for the Executive Committee to call for requests for funding projects in our region that will have a big impact for a small investment. That is a great situation to be in. Finally, the chair of PPP reported on a series of ideas for regional webinars towards professional development. He will work with our secretariat and the chair of CER to develop a monthly schedule which will be circulated as soon as it is available.