Landscape — Delivering a Resilient World

The world we live in is finite. I am ashamed to admit that too many of us in the United Kingdom are living in ways that, if replicated internationally, would require three worlds to sustain us all. Professor Stephen Hawking has predicted that for future generations to survive, we will need by the end of our lifetimes to have advanced plans to evacuate the planet. We know our climate is changing, and we in the UK have been fortunate to not suffer more serious consequences. People in many parts of our world are not so fortunate. We in the landscape profession, with our background in science and the arts, have both the breadth of knowledge to understand the sensitivity of our natural systems, and the imagination to project the long-term implications of our behaviours. I predict that, as tensions rise from a combination of increased population, decreasing land resource and the continuous use of non-renewable resources, our services will be much in demand. There is a new sense of urgency to attract young people into the profession. Our education systems must equip new entrants into landscape with the skills they need to meet the ever-changing challenges we face. We applaud your country’s leader, President Xi Jinping, in emphasising the importance of the quality of life of China’s people. This article is my contribution to that objective. The quality of everyone's lives is our responsibility, and we would like this to herald the start of a long-term relationship between the landscape professions in China and the UK that sees us collaboratively develop our services in a way that benefit everybody