Arcadia Landscape Architecture has announced the National Arcadia Landscape Architecture Award for Indigenous Students (NALAAIS), an expansion of the Arcadia Landscape Architecture Indigenous Scholarship established with the UNSW School of the Built Environment in 2016.

The almost non-existent representation of Indigenous practitioners in the landscape architecture profession has led Arcadia to establish individual scholarships with universities who offer an AILA-accredited Landscape Architecture program, says the firm.

Planning for the NALAAIS has been in progress for almost twelve months, but the recent bushfires brought a renewed focus on how Indigenous knowledge and traditional land and fire management practices can prevent fire damage and enable the return of healthy landscapes and ecosystems.

“When our first recipient of this scholarship completed her Landscape Architecture degree, it brought the total number of Indigenous landscape architects practising in Australia to just three. While we feel pride in the small success of the scholarship has created to date, we also recognise that we want to achieve so much more to ensure our profession will benefit from the perspective of Indigenous landscape architects,” says Alex Longley, principal of Arcadia.

The primary aim of the scholarship, says Arcadia, “is to encourage Indigenous students to enter landscape architecture, as proper representation of Indigenous people in this industry will galvanise capacity to care for Country, connect with Country and place, share stories and learn ecological management and processes developed by our First People over eons.”

The scholarship will be offered through the following universities:

Deakin University
Queensland University of Technology
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
University of New South Wales
University of Western Australia
University of Canberra
University of Melbourne
University of Technology Sydney
Arcadia’s Connection to Country

Image: Alex Longley and Michael Barnett present Kaylie Salvatori with the Arcadia Scholarship at the UNSW Built Environment Awards & Prizes Ceremony in 2019 / Supplied

Branko Miletic

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