Newly elected President of the AILA: Claire Martin

October 26, 2020

Author

Claire Martin

Dear IFLA APR Community,

I hope you are all well during what continues to be a challenging time. I am Claire Martin, the Chairwoman for the Climate Change Working Group, a sub-committee of the International Federation of Landscape Architects Asia Pacific Region, and the newly elected President of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects.

Over the last week, the new AILA board has received messages of support from landscape architects, allied organisations, and professionals across all sectors, in Australia and the Asia-Pacific Region. As a new board, we will continue to provide strong corporate governance with an emphasis on a distributed leadership model - focusing on collaboration, communication, and representation. Central to our international engagement will be the opportunity to strengthen the relationship between AILA and IFLA APR President Mr. Fumiaki Takano, and the executive.

Climate change and biodiversity loss are the twin global challenges of our time, and the COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the importance of the relationship between climate, people, and nature. By working across Australia, regionally, and globally with our executives, committees, and membership, we will increase our capacity to advocate, to implement change, and to raise the profile of landscape architects across all sectors. We are already seeing strong alignment between the IFLA World, IFLA APR, and AILA Climate Change Working Groups, and National Advocacy Committee.

We are identifying topics of interest, with the potential to call for volunteers to be part of special interest, or informal collaborative groups - forming a network of landscape architects to help champion the implementation of the IFLA Action Plan across Australia and the Asia-Pacific Region. Following on from our 2019 Climate and Biodiversity Emergency Declarations, work is underway in Australia to help educate our members about Climate Positive Design and the development of national standards for Urban (Green) Infrastructure. And in two weeks’ time, the chairs of IFLA APR Committees and Working Groups will meet to ensure the effective streamlining of our work.

You can follow what we are doing across the region by connecting or following us on LinkedIn:

I believe there is strength in numbers so please help AILA and IFLA APR raise the profile of landscape architects and to build our capacity to advocate, by sharing resources. Post on social media what you are working on, whether speculative or built work, policies, articles, research, or student projects - tagging #landscapearchitecture, @AILA or @IFLAPR,

The AILA board looks forward to working with IFLA APR affiliates and members over 2020/21.

Stay safe and stay connected.

Claire Martin

President of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects

Chairwoman for the Climate Change Working Group (IFLA APR)