President's Message: June 2022

The world is facing a rapidly changing and unpredictable future, including the Russia-Ukraine war, the evolving pandemic, and the competition between countries in different political and geographical regions.

In the IFLA ExCo meeting, we discussed how to react to the war between Russia and Ukraine in the face of these changing times. IFLA President Hayter believes that as a professional organization, it is not appropriate for us to get involved in politics, but we should think about the role of landscape professionals, whether we can pool our professional strengths and consider how we can use our team's knowledge and know-how to carry out possible restoration work on the damaged environmental ecosystems and human assets in both countries. This will require professional integration and the participation of possibly long term volunteer teams. We also call for the preservation of precious cultural assets and the avoidance or mitigation of irreversible damage to natural ecosystems. These restoration efforts are indeed dependent on the interests and diverse participation of all professionals.

The election of new IFLA-APR board members is scheduled to close this month. We look forward to welcoming newcomers to IFLA-APR's public affairs, and we thank the previous board members and committee chairs for their dedication and commitment. Special thanks to the May Talk & Share guests Iris Hoi and Lenren Lee for their presentations and interactions on the professional development of landscape architecture and regional planning in Hong Kong, in particular, the conservation and practice of Landscape Urbanism in the context of high density development. We are looking forward to more frequent interactions among the Committees, and we hope that the cross-border exchanges will bring more vitality to this region.

With the help of CTLAS member Alessandro Martinelli, I have been invited to be a judge of the International Land Award and IFLA is also a co-organizer, hoping to expand the spectrum of landscape planning and design. Our former President Damian is also running for the next term of IFLA President. He has been dedicated to the promotion and cultivation of YLAA across the region for many years and has made outstanding contributions.

Thanks to KILA, we are now preparing for the World Congress in late August/early September. We are looking forward to having our members from different regions to attend the physical meeting as the pandemic subsides. The APR ExCo Meeting will be held on June 27th to discuss the report of the meeting and the forecast of attendees.

In the second half of 2022, we will plan to have more exchanges within committees, and we hope that each committee can promote their own work and utilize this Talk & Share as a platform for further engagement in the region.

Best,

Monica Kuo
June 9th