In the beginning was nothing and everything: an endless mass of energy. From that immense energy co alesced a single drop of water. And from that single drop of water the world developed.
Maori story of creation, Diane Menzies

The Peruvian Association of Landscape Architecture and the Municipality of Miraflores held the 2005 IFLA Western Region Conference at the Lima Marriot Hotel under the theme WATER, LANDSCAPE'S LIFE

• Water management in ancient civilizations
• Legislation as a tool for landscape planning
• Landscape Design evolution related to water
• Water as natural resource
• Ecological perspectives
• Water and planting design

On the previous day the Regional Council Meeting took place at the Miraflores Town Hall in Lima with an extensive agenda to discuss. Opening reception took place later in the evening at the Assembly Hall where Martha Fajardo was introduced to Municipal authorities and assistants.

First day Prime Minister of Peru, Mr. Kuchinski, Patricia Uribe, UNESCO representative for Peru and Miraflores Mayor, welcomed all assistants and IFLA President Martha Fajardo initiated the meetings emphasizing the importance of Landscape Architecture and its evolution in the region, being sure that all knowledge derived from the event would be of special importance for the recognition and consolidation of the profession in this area of the world. Martha also expressed her acknowledge to Carmen Balarín de Iberico, President of the Peruvian Association of Landscape Architecture and its members, for the great time and effort dedicated to the Conference.

An additional event was the presentation of the book "Green landscapes with less water" edited by "Floralies", The Peruvian Gardens Club with comments by Luis Maezono, Rector of the Agrarian National University "La Molina"; Rosa Brescia de Fort, texts and direction; and Alejandro Cabeza, commenter guest. At the end of the second day the Student Design Competition was exhibited at the House of Culture of the Ricardo Palma University. The first prize was given to an urban renewal proposal where railway station elements were rescued and interpreted as a contribution for community recreation.

During the third day a technical tour was organized to visit an urban wetland of unique importance "Pantanos de Villa", being the only ecological protected area devoted to preservation of flora and fauna in the proximities of Lima. An additional highlight for that day was the visit to the beautiful Hacienda Santa Rosa, next to the wetland, were an extraordinary cultural experience related to Peruvian tradition was given to all us who included horse ride exhibition, folklore dance and food.

Related to water management in ancient civilizations Ruth Shady talked about some recent archeological discoveries were terraces, canals, islands, excavated depressions worked as artificial ponds and irrigation systems, showed to be not just functional, but aesthetically pleasing, and surely a source of inspiration for contemporanean landscape design, technological sustainable development. Diane Menzies presented some case studies to outline the importance of legislation to protect physical resources, cultural heritage, and natural water origins.

A tool for landscape planning, concluding that "more rigor in management for the long term is needed, because if water and the landscape are healthy, people will be sustained".

Jim Taylor and Alejandro Cabeza spoke about historic origins and evolution in landscape design with water. The first presented some contemporary applications such as hydrological function, protection of floodplains, preservation and enhancement of ecological systems, human use, and cultural identity with most cases in Canada and USA; the second pointed out twenty century contributions in western region that influenced worldwide landscape architecture design such as Burle Marx's, Noguchi's and Barragán's.

To highlight the importance of historical gardens connected with water, Roberto Mulieri talked about the historic and landscape orientated restoration of El Messidor, on the margins of Lake Nahuel Huapi, Argentina.

In order to preserve biodiversity in cities, the rescue of natural systems related to the drainage of rain water must be implemented, as Carlos Jankilevich pointed out in one of the panels, who is developing and applying a methodology in San Jose Costa Rica with a group of students.

Antonio Flores talked about the importance of water conservation and its relation to biodiversity showing a case study of relevance: the amazon's basin area where Peru, Brazil and Bolivia share responsibilities. The challenge is to apply wise planning and action strategies for solving social and environmental problems such as community workshops that already had been carried out.

Water as a change factor was the subject that showed the impact of a Tsunami in Valdivia, Chile in a talk given by Pedro Etchepare. The work exposes the recovering time within the natural and cultural context, the building of a new scenario.

Talking about environmental responsibility, Diana Henríquez mentioned today's importance of interaction between planners, urban designers and landscape architects with communities, promoters and dealers, among others in order to generate adequate solutions either social or environmental sustainable. On the same theme, Diana Wiesner spoke about responsibility based in understanding ecological structure, public space and water management in cities, showing good examples in Colombia related to water and urban landscape design.

Water: more costly than oil? was the theme of Amy Schneckenburger where she mentions that "A society without adequate water resources is an unstable society"; the talk focus human actions that alter availability of freshwater like agriculture, industry and domestic. Some possible solutions are market and policy responses, water banks, transfers and re-use, harvesting, education and awareness, design/plant selection and maintenance and repair.

On ecological perspectives, Rocío López outlined the presence of water in soil erosion and some technical solutions to protect water bodies margins with man made materials and the use of vegetation with ecological principles. Several planting designs with aquatic and marginal species were shown.

I consider the Regional Conference a great success, not just because of the professional and academic content but the friendly atmosphere and a carefully organization.