Rediscovering thebasics of landscape

Between 1980 and 2000, Ingrid Duchhart, a Dutch landscape architect, worked on

several landscape planning projects in Kenya, most notably the Green Towns project.

Janneke van de Wetering, then a student of landscape architecture, visited the Green

Towns in 2006, and observed the durability of many of the efforts undertaken a decade

ago. According to both, to practise landscape architecture in Kenya is to rediscover the

basics of the profession.

Photos: Ingrid Duchart andJanneke van de wetering

Recently, newspapers reported a catastrophicdecline in surface water levels in the \1au Forestarea, northwest of the Kenyan capital i\'airobi,an important source of drinking water and irri-gation. High-ranking politicians, including thePresident, are said to be the cause of this prob-lem as they are giving out land in return forvotes. Deforestation soon follows on these lands,and the capacity of the land to retain rainwaterdecreases. Here, in one news report, you havean interesting sketch of a major African country.lational politics and power struggles lead LO

frequent unrest, while on a local scale commu-nities need to adapt to ecological and landscapedynamics, which, as shown by the above exam-ple, arc dramatically linked. 'Nevertheless', saysIngrid Duchhart, 'people are working very hardwithin and across communities. ''''orking onstructural imprO\'ements at a local level is cer-tainly possible.'

'Make your town a Green Town'Duchhart's long-time involvement in Kenya

started in the nineteen-eighties when she joinedsome development projects financed by Dutchdevelopment funding. Together with a col-league, Frederique Grootenhuis, who lived inKenya and graduated as a landscape architectearlier in Wageningen, the i'ietherlands, she wasable LOinvolve the university and apply for fund-ing to do more development projects. Theselater turned into case studies, as it became clearthat Duchhart would use her experiences asinput for a dissertation. From 1980 to 1990, shewas involved in several landscape planning proj-ects, some of which focused on landscape plan-ning, others on evaluation, landscape analysis etcetera. Using her experiences, in 1992

Learning fromsustainable landscapedesign in Kenya

Informal settlements are often situated on unsuitable and vulnerable

places. Erosion and floods caused life-threatening situations.

Duchhart and others were ready LOset up theGreen Towns project, a widely recognized effortto improve livelihood conditions in many vil-lages by means of sustainable landscape plan-ning. Green Towns, which ran until 2000,received nationwide attention through telel'i-sion and newspaper cO\·erage. ';\Iake your to\l'Ila Green Town' became a well-known slogan onposters, buttons and bumper stickers. It hasbecome a national organization with a :\airobi-based coordination unit, and has remained soever since, although lack of funding has dis-abled any overarching activities in recent years.'In many villages, however', adds Janneke vande Wetering, who visited Kenya in 2006, 'theorganization and the Green Towns vision hal'eremained alive.'

ParticipationThe key to the durability of the Green Town

projects is participation. 'Unlike many other aidorganizations, we did not work with sittingallowances, which means paying locals to partici-pate', explains Duchhart. 'If you pay them, youwill have many people, but as soon as you leave

they are gone LOO.Therefore, we only workedwith genuinely motivated volunteers. [n addi-tion, it was very importantLO find the right rep-resentation, some district officials, the munici-pality and ordinary citizens. [n Kenya thereexists no established framework for the kind ofintegral landscape planning we do in Westerncountries, and, while different levels of govern-melll, district departments, and citizens areaffected by what happens in the environment,there is for instance no cooperation betweenthe Ministry of Lands and Settlement and theMinistry of Local Government. We broughttheir knowledge and responsibilities together.'Duchhart and her colleague Grootenhuis set upa training programme for trainers to give work-shops in participatory environmental planning.These workshops, held in the villages, weredesigned LOhal'e villagers come up with allkinds of problems, such as pollution, erosion,drought et cetera. The concerns were groupedand the relations were identified. 'All of a sud-den, people began to see the bigger picture. Wewere able LOdiscuss what measures they couldtake in order LOmake an action plan and set up

Workshop participants in the Webuye PEP

workshop prepare a presentation.

an action group. The action groups took up theresponsibility for carrying out the plan.'Duchhan adds, insistantly: 'All the time, it waslocal knowledge and local people that did thejob. It was not me, some lady from the ,,vest,telling them what to do.'

Functional aestheticsThe importance of aesthetics, according to

Duchhan and Van de vVetering, is minimal inthe context of Kenyan villages. 'As the challengeis to improve local livelihood conditions', saysDuchhart, 'we were forced to look at how thelandscape works, how to create a healthy envi-ronment and, for instance, to look at tree plant-ing in relation to watershed management.Essen tially, these are functional relations that webrought to the foreground.' She notes that inWestern Europe, perhaps, there is an overem-phasis on aesthetics, and Van de Weteringagrees: 'When it is only about aesthetic design,you are not sure anymore what you are con-tributing. In Kenya, one is able to experiencethe real c011lribution of landscape architecture.'Duchhart: 'Trees are beautiful but, foremost,they give shade, produce fruit and preve11l ero-sion. Without the means to do maintenance - asis the case in Kenya - the aesthetics soon vanish.It needs a functional basis, it needs to yieldsomething in the short term, otherwise it willnot be maintained.' She adds: 'When I arrivedin Kenya, I really had to let go of the landscapearchitect's urge to design. It was absolutely nec-essary to let villagers do the designing them-selves, and this comes down to the very func-

Real-life experience was crucial in apprehending the problems but also in seeing

solutions. Here, trainees visit a small-scale anaerobic sewage treatment pond.

The purified water is used to irrigate vegetable gardens and bananas.

tional basics of landscape architecture.'It was not easy for Duchhart to present her

experiences in Kenya to her colleagues in theNetherlands. Many thought she was involved insome kind of development aid mission, whichcould not possibly be related to landscape archi-tecture. However, she learned valuable lessonswith respect to participation and the role ofinstitutions, crucial for securing durable land-scape planning results. Thus, when discussingthis with colleagues in the Netherlands, she was

When I arrived in Kenya, I reihad to let go of the landscaparchitect's urge to design

told to say 'in my experience, a workshop mightbe a good idea for working on this problem',rather than 'in Kenya, we organized workshopsto overcome this problem'. 'That was quitehard', Duchhart remembers, 'however, thingsare changing. In 2007, I presented my work atthe IFLA Conference in Dubai, and met with alot of enthusiasm to my great surprise.' Bothfunctional aesthetics and participation havebecome more important in the Netherlands andother Western countries in recent years. 'We arenow faced with a huge water challenge as aresult of climate change. Landscape architectsare working with the landscape again. How canwe ensure that people are still able to live inthese lowlands when the sea level rises)' And alllandscape planning, especially on a regionalscale, now has to be done cooperatively. AsDuchhart says: 'We cannot do without participa-tion anymore. After a technocratic period inDutch policy-making, policy documents are nowmore and more directed towards an inclusiveand participative planning process. In Kenya, wewere already doing this in the nineteen-nineties! '

The economic development of Western coun-tries in the twentieth century is now gradually

II

I

I .LLI .IlL

I ",HiP I e,- -, SL""iI ~lo"~ I c;.k1IL

_ ~oQ.6~i • ~MltJC

I I • ~_;,'L hov.{•~ti:"e Sc:1"i'UP"6l~ I "Cc.--6Ac,AI- b..-V.

I • Sl\l.,"~> I'''''A''~ 1li60'I I. Q.Ab NOT"""'«"

tort...•,'0 OC1~.

cr:JO ~<10 _ ,

~1

rJ (:)

t""~'j

JJ0

*

The first map that the participants would draw was the base map. This map represented

the environment as perceived by them

I !-tl Ll

I fOPI

I .!!.'.- :~l .!.!l- ,CoveIllL I

11l,""'1 CeN,"'; I C,6NTL6 I~I~I M,;,j

IV""'" I~Pe

""LoPeI $ •..•fE I

I I C gt> I I f'''''M''' , l"l~r• MAl" C?•• b

, I C:~A:L>"" I.e,..;;. I• 1N~7ITviiDtJ\ :~t&TI

I II ,

By talking together and going on field walks the participants shared local knowledge. Drawing up a

cross-section helped to further their understanding of the environment.

becoming permeated by an emphasis on suslain-ability. According to Duchhart, in Kenya, andespecially in the Green Town projecls, suslain-able and economic development have alwaysbeen two sides of the same coin. 'We could onlyunderstand economics at the local level. Afarmer is only prepared to invest in plantingtrees if he will profit in some way, for examplebecause the trees bear fruillhal can be sold inlhe market place. At this level, you are alwayslooking for suslainable solulions that are eco-nomically viable.' On a macro level, countriesare always compared in lerms of economicdevelopment and per capila income. Big money

A lot of things are lost, butpeople start over again, everytime, and they work hard touphold their efforts

games are taking place at this level, develop-ment money does not always end up where itshould, but Duchhart fortunately has been ableto stay focused on improving local conditions.'Nevertheless, we were required to prove theimpact of our work. Were the projects reallycontributing to economic development? Itmight, in the end, have been this economicbenchmark that stopped some of the funding,when the Dutch embassy judged our proposalfor setting up Internet cafes to be economicallyunviable', she recalls. 'Still, we think theInternet facility would have given an extra impe-tus to our mission, because it would have

In 1988, the site of the busy regional market in Kisii was heavily eroded. The Green Towns Project organised a participatory environmental planning

workshop which resulted in an environmental development plan and the improvement of the market. The Kisii Green Towns Action Group composed

of community members, market salesmen and women, and the municipality took the lead in its implementation. They first started to work on the

road and the upper watershed - and then improved the market itself.

The market was terraced with local materials as much as possible. This gave the market a unique character. As early as 2006, the market had greatly improved (mid: c

situation; right: new situation). Because of the firm terraces and the hygienic public toilets, the market became a success. The available selling places and market incc

improved communications among the 30 partic-ipating Green Towns as well as the access toinformation. '

DurableIt seems that what is durable, what endures,

are socially and ecologically sustainable land-scape interventions that are economically viablefrom the local perspective. Despi te the difficul-ties brought about by violence - to wit the 2007and 2008 elections - climate change, corruptionproblems, and their consequences for the land-scape, the communities are very resilientaccording to Duchhart. 'A lot of things are lost,but people start over again, every time, and theywork hard to uphold their efforts. The newspa-pers only show the downsides, but we should bemore attentive to the positive signs.' Shebelieves that Green Towns has given communi-ties new means to keep working on the environ-ment. Indeed, in 2006 Van de Wetering wit-nessed the resilience also of the Green Townsvision: 'There were people who, despite losingeverything else, kept on running the GreenTowns action group.' Although not all projectswere successful, new Green Towns still emergedafter Duchhart left in 2000, and by 2006 therewere about 41 of them. 'All in all', says Van deWetering, 'I was surprised at how durable Green

Towns has proven to be. Some projectsdeclined, but others even picked up after 2000.'Duchhart remembers a project in Kisii, whichwas on the verge of failure. 'But in the picturestaken in 2006 by Van de Wetering it looks won-derful. The tree nursery runs by itself, and itprotects the hill from erosion at the same time.'

ExoticGreen Towns have learned from each other,

the organization has grown, and perhaps nowWestern landscape architects, academics andother professionals are starting to become inter-ested in Duchhart's experiences, paralleling theneed for participative planning processes (whatcould be called 'social sustainability') and theincreasing importance of a functional basis(ecological sustainability) of our interventionsin the landscape. For many, unfortunately,Duchhart's story remains African, exotic andirrelevant to Western contexts. One Europeanregion, however, would certainl)1 benefit fromKenyan insights, according to Duchhart: 'Whenwe visited the Mediterranean coast, thirty yearsago, it was a different landscape. Now, it hascompletely degraded as a result of tourismdevelopment. This poses a huge challenge thatinvolves, more than ever, looking at the mecha-nisms of the landscape. All kinds of small-scale

measures we took in Kenya, might help in theMediterranean's battle against drought and cli-mate change.' And so it might be the case thatEuropeans - who still regard Africa as the conti-nent in need of help - should be urged to lookbeyond the reports of catastrophe and disaster,brought to us by the media. Instead, if we lookat positive examples, such as those described byDuchhart and Van de Wetering, we may evenlearn something and be inspired by the energyof Kenya.

Joren Jacobs works at the Nijmegen Centre for Border

Research of Radboud University. His research focuses on

planning practice in marginal areas and border regions.

Currently, he is working on a PhD study about cross-

border spatial planning.

Ingrid Duchhart PhD is Assistant Professor of Landscape

Architecture at Wageningen University. In 2007, she

received her doctoral degree through her dissertation

'Designing Sustainable Landscapes from Experience to

Theory: A Process of Reflective Learning from Case-study

Projects in Kenya'.

Janneke van de Wetering Msc works at a consultancy

office in Wageningen, BELW,after graduating as a land-

scape architect in 2008. As part of her Master's at

Wageningen University she evaluated the Green Town

Movement and visited most of the project sites.

Shade is important in this semi-arid town of Machakos. The trees provide shade for people and their goods. The

Machakos Green Towns Action Group takes joint responsibility for the maintenance of this beautiful market.