Redefining landscapes through the lens of the East Asian–Australasian Flyway

Abstract

Climate change and biodiversity loss have heightened global awareness on environmental design, unfolding paradigms of ecological design. Concepts such as nature-based solutions, urban nature, biophilic design and sponge cities have emerged and are increasingly implemented in real projects. Yet, many of these initiatives remain inherently fixed, bounded, and site-based, limiting their capacity to address the escalating challenges of global ecology questions. Meanwhile, conservationists have embraced transboundary perspective. The East Asian–Australasian Flyway Partnership (EAAFP), for instance, demonstrates how regional conservation efforts by perceiving wetlands and habitats across the region as interconnected entities can achieve significant outcomes to conserve migratory birds. To understand the Asia-Pacific Region through the lens of migratory birds, hence, blur the boundaries of nations. Archipelago is no longer isolated fragments but as a vast, integrated ecosystem network crucial to global environmental issues. Against this background and with reflection on mainstream landscape architectural practice on ecological design, this article contends that prevailing ecological frameworks in design has to be redefined anew from the epistemological perspective to advance a planetary ecology and adopt an ecological network approach.