The pine tree: a symbol of hope

13 Apr 2011

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First, a correction: In my last blog but one, I wrote about the traditional Japanese form of flood defence, which is a dense plantation of pine trees along a sandy spit between the sea and a town. I incorrectly called this a ‘matsubara’ when, in fact, it is called a ‘matsubayashi’. Apologies for the incorrect terminology. This week I have a small footnote to that story.

One of the towns that was obliterated by the tsunami was Rikuzentaka in Iwate Prefecture. Rikuzentakata had a beautiful matsubayashi, which I visited a few years ago. It had helped protect the town since it was planted by a local merchant in the 17th century. There were 70,000 pines in the matsubayashi, and all but one was smashed to oblivion by the waves. The image above is of the last standing pine.

The trees have long had a special place in the lives of local people, partly because they protected the town and partly because a dense, mature forest by the beach was such a wonderful natural asset that people used to enjoy the summer on the beach beneath them. The lone surviving pine, stripped of its lower branches, has become a symbol of hope for the people of the town, who regard its enduring presence as miraculous and a rallying point for their efforts to rebuild their lives.

For the next couple of weeks, quite a bit of my time is going to be spent on matters relating to education and training for landscape architects. This is set against the backdrop that the Youtube video of ‘I Want to Be  Landscape Architect’ has now been viewed more than 10,000 times, which must make it by far the most successful career promotion tool the profession has ever had.

I am kicking off this week with a meeting of our accredited university course to discuss what the future holds for higher education in the UK given the radical changes to funding. Like all professions, landscape architecture will have to adapt to a possibly very different university environment and we will need to work closely with the universities to ensure that graduates of the requisite calibre and desirable numbers continue to feed into the ranks of the profession in the future.

Next week, I am off to meet members in the Yorkshire and Humberside branch and the Southeast branch to discuss the new proposals on defining practice and specialisms within landscape architecture. These will, in turn, inform decisions about chartership exams and CPD in the future. 

Lastly, the government has announced a review of cultural education in England (http://www.culture.gov.uk/news/media_releases/8036.aspx), which will include design and the built environment. We will be making a response in due course, and it is also open to individual members to respond with their own views. If you do respond, please let me know what you say.

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