Earlier this year, IFLA Europe was tasked by the Council of Europe to prepare a report entitled “Urban landscapes and climate change: the contribution of Landscape Architects to improve the quality of life. The report was prepared by our Council of Europe Working Group (Ana Luengo, Michael Oldham, Indra Purs, Niek Hazendonk) and presented by Michael Oldham at the 11th Council of Europe Conference on the European Landscape Convention which took place on 26-27 May 2021 under the auspices of the Presidency of Hungary of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe with objective to present to the member States of the Organisation the state of progress of the Work Programme of the Convention and to deal with questions concerning its implementation.

The Conference adopted the report under the following terms. This will be reported to the Council of Europe’s CDCPP (Steering Committee for Culture, Heritage and Landscape) meeting later this year and then passed to the Council of Ministers for their meeting in the autumn. Once it has completed this process, the text is engrained in the workings of the Council of Europe and published. As the Convention has been adopted by the States Parties to the Convention (40 out of 47) this enables Landscape Architects in these member countries/states to remind the responsible Ministry of their undertakings and responsibilities with regard to the provisions of the European Landscape Convention concerning the establishment of means of intervention for the protection, management and/or planning of landscapes (Article 6, E.)

In this case the Conference adopted the following, referring back to Declaration on the professional recognition of Landscape Architects, adopted at its 10th Council of Europe encouraging the State Parties to the European Landscape Convention to formally recognise the profession of Landscape Architects;

– to take note of the Report “Urban landscapes and climate change: the contribution of landscape architects to improving the quality of life”, prepared by Mr Michael Oldham, in the capacity of Expert of the Council of Europe, in the framework of the Council of Europe activities for the implementation of the European Landscape Convention;