California Landscape Design

Greetings.

First of all, I wish to introduce myself. My name is Martin G. Carrion van Rijn, and I have the honor and privilege of serving the APLD California Chapter (Chapter) and our members as your President this year. Even though I know that these challenging and uncertain times are continuing, I am very excited for the opportunity to provide leadership and collaborate with the amazing APLD members and every Chapter and district leader. I look forward to supporting and promoting the practice of excellence in landscaped design and to collaborating with our industry sponsors.

Within our Chapter, we are working to prepare educational opportunities that I believe are key to what APLD stands for and offers to our members. One such opportunity is Advocacy and Sustainability, especially as it addresses our right to practice and ways for us to become more aware and advocate for regenerative practices and how to better serve the diversity of the communities that our practice affects. I encourage you to stay connected and engage wherever and whenever you are able and to make the most of your membership.

I find that as professional landscape designers, we are in a position to serve our clients and communities in varied and exciting ways. After all, we work and implement concepts and creative ideas of unity, synergy, balance, diversity, function, flow, and so much more. What does that ultimately mean though? I feel that to do our job in a responsible way, we need to understand the requirements and laws that govern both the natural world to keep it in balance, as well as the requirements, needs, and tastes of our clients or the human communities, and bring a balance between those intrinsically connected worlds. As a result, I believe we need to be aware of the larger communities and ecosystems that our practice affects and serve them as well in our designs and installations. My understanding is that balance is something that nature is almost always seeking, which can be achieved by supporting the richness of the natural biodiversity of a site, which in turn, creates unity and harmony, environmental spirituality, and an aesthetic that we, as humans, so much value in our natural and man-made landscapes. This brings a sense of wellbeing into our lives and, thus, I feel it is our privilege and responsibility as landscape designers to support and nourish that biodiversity.

In this issue of APLD California Landscape Design, the focus is to showcase the efforts and results of the APLD Greater Los Angeles (GLA) District’s collaboration with LA Environment Sanitation (LASAN) to offer the Los Angeles Biodiversity Symposium in November this past year. One of the Symposium’s objectives was to bring an increased awareness of the importance of biodiversity in our landscapes, as well as to give practical tools for developing protective strategies to safeguard the Los Angeles region’s resilience and sustainability. This awareness and importance biodiversity goes beyond the borders of the City of Los Angeles and needs to be practiced throughout the State of California.

I would also like to thank and recognize the Bay Area District (BAD) that brought to our members, with support by the Chapter, the program Cultural Humility for Anti-Racism on January 7, 2021. Last July, the Bay Area District (BAD) formed the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. In order to effectively advocate for a sustainable future, it is vital for us to address inequity and exclusion that result from a lack of diversity. We look forward to more events and opportunities related to these issue to be brought to our members.

May you find this issue of California Landscape Design as inspiring and useful as I feel all of the issues have been. This publication is a rich resource of inspiration for and about our members. 

I wish you all a prosperous and happy New Year, full of nourishing and diverse experiences and opportunities.

Sincerely,
Martin G. Carrion van Rijn