Learning Regenerative Pathways from the World's First Landscape Architects

4 November 2024

Introduction

Land holds stories woven by countless generations, shaped and reshaped with each step we take. Some stories speak of domination and separation, pulling us apart from the world around us, while others encourage connection and invite us into deeper, more relational ways of being. Through centuries-long and still ongoing destruction of Indigenous peoples’ lands, bodies and relational worlds, the expansion of the ‘modern’ world through the capitalist colonial patriarchy dominant system has led to biocultural homogenisation (Rozzi et al., 2018) and landscape fragmentation (Perfecto et al., 2019), threatening the survival of all life on Earth. This urges radical reconnection and profoundly transformative approaches toward creating all-life-flourishing, connective landscapes.

The (bio)plurality concept expands on this narrative, embracing not merely the survival of life—as advocated in conservation and biodiversity paradigms—but all the co-creating relations that sustain life, fostering unique, irreplaceable worlds, relationships, and ecosystems (Mitchell, 2024). Around the world, millions of Indigenous peoples and local communities have embodied (bio)plurality, nurturing human and planetary well-being through regenerative practices of designs by radical indigenism and agroecology, exemplifying enduring resistance to destructive ideologies. It is, therefore, crucial to indigenise the landscape narrative and learn regenerative pathways from the people whose practices create futures of collective continuity and harmonious coexistence.

Indigenising the Landscape Narrative

Humans have been transforming landscapes for millennia, significantly influencing the Earth. The transformative capacity of Indigenous peoples is highlighted by Gómez-Pompa and Klaus (1992), who state, “Scientific findings indicate that virtually every part of the globe has been inhabited, modified, or managed throughout our human past” (as cited in Berkes, 2018: 260). Although Indigenous populations had already been changing their landscapes before the Europeans arrived in the Americas in 1492 (Koch et al., 2019), these findings are often ignored amidst the dominant Western narrative. The enduring notions of ‘untouched’ landscapes and ‘wilderness’ persist to this day, particularly within conservation and biodiversity frameworks.

What they are missing is that many Indigenous communities have been creating seemingly pristine landscapes through their ecological expertise and deep commitment to nurturing the sacredness of their lands, embracing the complexity of human-nature relations founded on love, respect and reciprocity. Such worldviews of seeing ‘community-of-beings’ as sacred ecology are echoed by many Indigenous scholars, including R.W. Kimmerer, Potawatomi botanist and author of the exceptional book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. In her book, she demonstrates how love and care are expressed through gift-giving acts, which create ongoing relationships while carrying obligations and responsibilities, highlighting the importance of keeping them in motion (Kimmerer, 2013).

Since Indigenous ways of knowing and being underline a deep connection between the land and its people, they challenge the conventional approach to Earth restoration, which often involves removing humans from the landscape, as seen in the rising popularity of 'rewilding' projects.

Instead, the focus should shift to recentring Indigenous knowledges and embracing regenerative practices rooted in reciprocity and care. This approach promotes the coexistence of humans and nature, aiming to foster mutual thriving rather than reinforcing separation.

Sacred Landscapes of Transformation

Many Indigenous communities around the world embrace regenerative practices through innovative transformations of their sacred landscapes, simultaneously fighting against the ongoing devastation of their homes. The Ogiek people, who have lived in the Mau Forest in Kenya since time immemorial, illustrate this well. With incredible ecological expertise, the Ogiek have been restoring their ancestral lands while resisting state violence alongside forest devastation (Survival International, 2023; Claridge and Kobei, 2023).

Beekeeping has long been Ogiek expression of their reciprocal relations within the forest.  The Ogiek classify the forest into three distinct zones—Lower, Central, and Upper Forest—based on altitude and vegetation types (Zocchi et al., 2020). This classification is crucial for beekeeping, as it informs where to place hives to optimise bee health and honey production. Furthermore, Ogiek hives, built from fallen Juniperus procera (Torokuet) trees, are durable, provide excellent insulation for the bees and are created in a way that does not harm standing trees, thus preserving forest integrity and ecology (Zocchi et al., 2020).

The Ogiek also cultivate the African honeybee, which forages on many floral species, playing a crucial role in sustaining the ecosystem. Pollination, essential for plant reproduction, is significantly enhanced as the Ogiek increase the number of bee-nest sites, supporting forest regeneration and community livelihoods (Lowore et al., 2018).

The sacredness of trees for the Ogiek is highlighted by Judy Kipkenda, Executive Director of the Koibatek Ogiek Women and Youth Network, an organisation dedicated to forest restoration and community empowerment:

“A tree is a very sacred being. Trees are living beings just like us.                                                                                                  

When someone dies, we bury them in the forest.                                                                                                              

For elders, we plant a specific tree on their graves.                                                                                        

It’s through identifying those particular trees that Ogiek map the forest.                                                                                                      

When a mother gives birth, the placenta is buried in the forest.                                                                                              

So, our attachment to the forest is more than just living there.                                                                                        

It is the connection we have with our ancestors who are buried there.                                                                    

 Everybody’s placenta is buried in the forest.                                                                                                                        

And it means you belong to the forest.”

––Judy Kipkenda (2024)

Ogiek relationships with the Mau Forest, their ancestors, bees and trees ensure the collective continuity and flourishing of all life. After all, the name ‘Ogiek’ translates to “caretaker of all plants and wild animals” (Claridge, 2017: 57).

Indigenous regenerative practices such as those from the Ogiek, can be seen within the broader context of the emerging ‘radical indigenism’ concept. Originated from the Cherokee Nation citizen Professor Garoutte, it inspired landscape designer Julia Watson and writer and educator Melissa Hunter Gurney to create a movement aimed at rebuilding “an understanding of Indigenous philosophies concerning design to generate sustainable and climate-resilient infrastructures” (Watson, 2020: 18).

The radical indigenism philosophy led to the creation of the Lo—TEK Institute (Lo—TEK being an acronym for (Lo)cal + (T)raditional (E)cological (K)nowledge), focused on empowering Indigenous communities whose knowledges have been violated and guiding non-indigenous people on how to understand and apply Indigenous knowledges respectfully and responsibly (Lo—TEK, 2024). With its decolonising framework, it continues to rise in worldwide recognition, currently showcasing 18 Indigenous designs (see Watson, 2020) and responding to the need for a fundamental transformation of ways of knowing and being in the world, teaching us, landscape architects, that regenerative landscapes require healing both, the land and communities.

Regenerating the Land and Communities through Agroecology

In Africa, millions of local farmers and Indigenous peoples embrace Indigenous knowledge through agroecology, considered the most sustainable path to food security and societal transformation (Todhunter, 2018).

In simplest terms, agroecology is a local, regenerative farming practice that fosters the relationships between plants, animals, humans and their environments.

It is inseparably linked to food sovereignty, formulated by La Vía Campesina as “the right of peoples to decide upon and control their food autonomously through peasant agroecology” (Peña-Azcona and Trevilla-Espinal, 2020: 6), leading to the emergence of radically different food systems (FSs) with more equitable power relations.

Agroecology has gained remarkable recognition, functioning as a science, practice, and movement (Peña-Azcona and Trevilla-Espinal, 2020), and it is considered the best adaptive and restorative strategy for the future of FSs (Villar, 2023). As the COVID-19 pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in global food supply chains, Indigenous FSs stood resilient, demonstrating their ability to sustain communities even in times of crisis. Rooted deeply in the land, agroecology increases biodiversity dimensions and landscape complexity, supports pollination and ecosystem restoration, and reduces edge effects in natural habitats (Villar, 2023).

Each agroecosystem is unique; therefore, agroecology promotes knowledge-sharing and co-production, local initiatives and training programs. In this way, agroecology becomes a communal endeavour, paving the way to sustainable futures by resisting corporate commodification, challenging patriarchy through amplifying the marginalised voices and building climate resilience. Since agroecology holds an enormous regenerative potential for the land and communities, it is vital for the broader socio-ecological transformation.

Integrating Design by Radical Indigenism and Agroecology

The transition from fragmented to connective landscapes requires reimagining landscapes through a design-focused lens. Decolonial thinking must guide this process, acknowledging that landscapes are powerful instruments and that designers play a pivotal role in shaping power dynamics.

Thus, landscape architects must understand Indigenous peoples’ relationships with the landscape, promoting a collaborative approach to design.

By respectfully cooperating with Indigenous peoples and agroecologists and integrating their expertise into the design process, landscape architects can help dismantle colonial land legacies, redesigning landscapes. The focus on agricultural and urban landscapes is driven by their critical role in addressing planetary crises.

Agricultural landscapes are key to protecting life on Earth; they cover 38% of managed ecosystems (FAO, 2020); simultaneously, industrial agriculture threatens 86% of endangered species (Anderson and Bruil, 2021: 12) and contributes to 21–37% of global greenhouse gas emissions (IPCC, 2023). The agroecological ecosystems within them are crucial in influencing species immigration rates and, consequently, overall biodiversity (Perfecto et al., 2019). Therefore, there is a pressing need for explicitly designed agricultural landscapes supporting human and ecological health. Interestingly, agroecological landscape design is not new; it builds on the 18th-century ‘ferme ornée’ (‘ornamental farm’) approach to agriculture, which applied science, horticultural knowledge and aesthetic understanding of the rural landscape to practical food production needs (Jacques, 1999).  This represents a powerful example of how agriculture and landscape design were once practised as one discipline.

Today, landscape architects play a vital role in developing agroecological interconnected networks. Our expertise in master planning provides a holistic vision that integrates local and regional contexts, which is essential for navigating the complexities of such projects.

Crucially, creating all-life-flourishing, connective landscapes requires designing more than ecological corridors to provide critical movement pathways.

The design must simultaneously enhance human well-being, recognising the urgency of reconnecting people with nature and re-framing biodiversity-rich landscapes as “places where people are considered welcome visitors, dwellers or travellers rather than temporary alien invaders upon a nonhuman landscape” (Büscher and Fletcher, 2020: 164).

By integrating ecological approaches such as restoring degraded habitats, enhancing local ecosystems, and ensuring a long-term biodiversity vision with healing landscape design principles, focusing on increased therapeutic effect, landscape architects ensure that agricultural landscapes are genuinely integrated, fostering ecological resilience and the flourishing of human and more-than-human life.

Similarly, urban landscapes are increasingly recognised as critical spaces for addressing the socio-ecological crises. Today’s cities are ecologically and socially destructive as they consume over two-thirds of the world's energy whilst generating about 70% of global emissions (UN, 2018), contributing to higher crime rates (Anderson, 2022), social exclusion (Moser, 2020) and health problems (Gruebner et al., 2017). With over 55% of the global population living in cities—a figure expected to rise to 68% by 2050 and a further 85% by 2100 (UN, 2018)—the design of these spaces will profoundly impact human and planetary well-being. Furthermore, there is a strong relationship between cities and water since nearly all cities are fundamentally water cities, which makes them vulnerable as climate change-induced sea-level rise directly threatens millions of people (UN-Habitat, 2022).

In this context, Indigenous adaptive strategies highlight the need to design cities as part of interconnected ecosystems. A fantastic example comes from the Uros people in Peru, whose Floating Islands exemplify the possibility of creating resilient, multifunctional landscapes supporting biodiversity, food production, and water purification (Watson, 2020).

The Uros have been constructing their unique floating world from totora reeds—local organic material—for over 4,500 years. It has been “simultaneously a floating village, an aquaculture farm, and an artificial wetland synthesised into a single living infrastructure” (Watson, 2020: 277). Notably, maintaining the islands has been at the heart of the physical and cultural sustainability of the Uros community. As Frearson (2020) notes, urban landscapes can be designed to mimic these qualities, fostering harmonious relationships, producing food and mitigating floods while reducing energy use.

By respectfully integrating Indigenous expertise, cities can evolve from high-tech isolated islands to integrated landscapes of coexistence.

In this way, Indigenous design principles provide a blueprint for future cities, blending ecological connectivity with collective well-being in increasingly urbanised worlds.

Honouring the World's First Landscape Architects

The unfolding socio-ecological crises have resulted in the growing interest in adaptive projects and water-centric solutions, especially ‘floating cities’. Such projects must be critically examined within the broader political context because they often rely on the same progress-driven mindset underpinning ‘modernity’—the framework responsible for the unfolding catastrophe. OCEANIX Busan, unveiled in 2022 as ‘the world’s first prototype floating city’, illustrates this pervasive narrative, embracing high-tech solutions to problems these very solutions created. Aiming to address land scarcity and climate challenges, the project involves a flood-resistant community accommodating 12,000 residents across interconnected neighbourhoods with the potential to expand (UN-Habitat, 2022).

Crucially, what is advertised as an adaptable and sustainable model strikingly represents a continuation of ‘business as usual’. The project justifies its enormous embodied energy use through claims of ‘carbon neutrality’ despite growing evidence that carbon offsetting is ecologically ineffective and socially destructive (Rocha da Silva and Correia, 2022). Since excessive carbon emissions drive climate change and rising sea levels, pursuing high-energy projects only worsens these crises, perpetuating a destructive cycle of proposing solutions to environmental damage that paradoxically require further damage and more complex solutions.

Supporting this, Watson (2020) confirms the constant promotion of high-tech ‘sustainable’ solutions while ignoring the already existing and truly sustainable Indigenous innovations, leads us towards a future where superficial fixes are prioritised over genuine ecological resilience, ultimately deepening environmental degradation and societal inequities. Recognising that Indigenous communities such as the Uros in Peru have lived on floating islands for thousands of years, designing biodiverse and climate-resilient landscapes must be centred on how we relate to our natural environments. This accentuates that it is crucial to focus on regenerating not only the landscapes but all the co-creating relationships that sustain life within them.

In essence, we must unleash the transformative power of love, care and reciprocity as manifested in designs by radical indigenism and agroecology to create all-life-flourishing, connective landscapes.

In this way, we can recentre the intricate connections between human and more-than-human worlds, thereby honouring the sacred processes of transformation long embraced by Indigenous peoples—the world’s first landscape architects.

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