Foundation

The LHSA Foundation

The sheer scope and scale of our Landscape Heritage is so vast, the world so developed and constantly changing, populations ever growing and new problems arising - think global warming and pandemics - that we can no longer rely on Governments alone to do all the work that has to be done. In a more simple past we might have looked to national departments of environment, forestry and agriculture to look after the world for us but there's a limit to what Government can do.

Therefore there is a strong need for other major players in the field of Landscape Heritage. The ongoing challenges of rapidly expanding urban areas, rural development, pollution, land reform, dereliction and decay calls for a new way of doing things. Municipalities need support and strong direction or even partners to help take over the management of valuable resources, to guide development and pursue a powerful direction in Landscape Heritage Conservation and creation that is currently lacking.

This is a big idea, really, it is a great idea and it needs to be done by a partnership between the public and private sector with powerful funding to achieve every nation's necessary goals and objectives. The high value of Tourism & Tourism has yet to be capitalised into an effective framework of either taking on defunct estates and areas, or tapping into the vital area of Tourism into developing our economy. The Southern African Landscape Estate is simply vast. There is no good reason for it not to be as economically abundant as it is naturally rich in people and places.

Funding simply has to be created to help build a much better and more beautiful, less damaged and compromised Landscape that is as much an asset as it is naturally, culturally and desirably. Our national, provincial and local government plans are not enough to achieve this. Problem areas and features have to be identified and fixed before they are completely destroyed. This will never happen without political and cultural buy-in and adequate financial support by a visionary society. We can no longer be a people squatting in townships of despicable proportions, of wannabe suburbanites and social high flyers without actually rebuilding our rural societies and our roots. This is our Landscape Heritage, it is our culture and our heart.

The green hills, dry scrub and mountain villages are our origins. We have to reconnect to them to make our cities and towns work and we have to stop abandoning them in favour of a foreign urban lifestyle that has been designed to fail from the outset. The disconnect between African roots and African cities has to be bridged in the right understanding of our Landscape Heritage and the right promotion and development of it to create a profound and powerful society.