The Council of Europe participated in the conference “Landscape in Transition – Reimagining Resilient Futures”, organised by IFLA Europe at the Splendid Palace in Riga, Latvia, from 2 to 4 September 2026. The conference brought together more than 35 national landscape architecture delegations, with around 300 participants, to address climate pressures, biodiversity loss, changing land use, and social and economic transformation, alongside the safeguarding of cultural heritage and the identity of places.
Ms Caroline Martin, Secretary of the Council of Europe Landscape Convention (ETS No. 176/219), delivered the opening keynote on 3 September, joining a programme of speakers from professional practice, research and public policy organised around four sub-themes: Shifting Grounds, Shared Places, Patterns of Change and Memory of Places.
This participation reflects the close cooperation between IFLA Europe and the Council of Europe Landscape Convention. It was also an important opportunity to brief national delegations on the Council of Europe Strategy on the Environment, to recall the global scope of the Convention and to present its new institutional framework, built since 2026 around a new steering committee, the CDENV.
These exchanges helped strengthen dialogue between the European landscape architecture community and the Convention's network, particularly around landscape quality, democracy, human rights and environmental sustainability - ahead of the 13th Conference of the Parties, scheduled for 1 - 2 December 2026 in Strasbourg.
