Working to build a liveable world
A dread disease diagnosis, like cancer, is life-changing. Navigating the diagnosis, treatment and recovery can be aided or encumbered by financial and professional considerations. I was diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer in March 2024. I took six months off work when treatment started at the end of May and have...
Maybe we wake up and there ‘it’ is. Purpose. The force that drives us. Makes our eyes light up, hands fly-flap and voice rise as we talk passionately about our ‘thing’. At times, this purpose is murky, clouded by the endless shopping list of competing issues. And at other times,...
I was recently invited to deliver a keynote address at the World Urban Forest Forum held in Washington D.C, USA. Initial puzzlement at why Cape Town would be invited – a treeless biome – turned to curiosity. And a whole level of new thinking around urban forests and resilience –...
Founders Garden, a Western Cape Government Department of Transport and Public Works flagship project has been in the works since 2010 when the Cape Town Central City Regeneration Programme was approved by the incoming DA Provincial Cabinet. Renewed interest in the project due to the invitation to submit comments on...
“Rising temperatures will cause more death than all infectious diseases” the Guardian Newspaper reported on 4 August 2020. As the world battles to get a handle on COVID, it doesn’t really need competition for headlines. However, if the study is correct, “the growing but largely unrecognized death toll from rising...
Women have played a significant role in the struggle for South Africa’s freedom. Today’s dangers and battles are those against unseen threats that manifest in the extreme weather resulting from climate change and the underpinning structural economic inequality. This blogpost reflects on a recent Institute of Landscape Architecture of South Africa webinar that focused on the impacts of climate change on women.
Green infrastructure implementation suffers from a lack of “empirical” evidence of the value it generates. The cost benefit analysis applied to the Kirstenhof Wetland that uses property value as a measure, is a useful start.
“It’s in the Red Book”. The engineer leaned back in his chair and that was the end of the discussion. On the basis of this pronouncement, the project team would not consider off-grid water sources as part of a hybrid water supply system. This conversation took place in 2013, in...
Champion Trees are protected trees that connect us to our history and natural environment. Clare Burgess, (professional landscape architect and Chair of TreeKeepers, Cape Town) in conversation with Tamsin Faragher explains how they also connect us to our future. The South African Champion Trees initiative took root in 1998 when...
The City of Cape Town announced the completion of the Best Practice Guideline for Trees on Monday. Trees are promoted in the guideline as important for mitigating the heat island effect created by roads and buildings and for carbon capture and oxygen production, amongst other eco-services. Controversially, Cape Town-based Professor...
Thank you Tamsin. So important to share your vision.
Thank you so much for sharing so practically and vulnerably Tamsin. I have friends going through cancer treatment and it's…
Hello! Thanks for taking the time to read and comment. At this stage, I don't believe that anything is off…
Why aren't we considering planting the White Stinkwood Tree in the townships on the Cape Flats? It grows quickly, is…