Learning, sharing and acting: My visit to the UK with INTO

A TAP INTO blog by Melat Ketsella, Landscape Designer for Heritage Watch Ethiopia

I’m honoured to have been in the UK in September together with Esther Selassie Antohin, representing Heritage Watch Ethiopia as part of the British Council-funded project, Withstanding Change: Heritage Amongst Climate Uncertainty.

This initiative, led by INTO, brings together heritage professionals from six countries across the Middle East and East Africa. We’ve come together to explore how the UK’s heritage gardens sector is responding to the urgent challenges of climate change – and to learn how we might apply these lessons back home.

Our programme included visits to Fairfield House and Dyrham Park, two inspiring sites that demonstrate how heritage can be preserved and adapted in the face of environmental change.

We also attended the ‘Landscape City Conference’ in Bath, where we engaged with experts and practitioners from across the UK and beyond.

This was followed by an opening of the ‘Forest of Imagination’ at Entry Hill in the outskirts of the city of Bath. This was an opportunity which we took full advantage of, to meet a large group of the community, organisations involved in horticulture and culture as well as civil leaders. The Mayor of Bath, Councillor Professor Bharat Pankhania, opened the event.

What makes this experience so meaningful is the focus on action. After this visit, I’ll be returning to Ethiopia to share my learning with the gardens and nursery teams at Heritage Watch, drawing on the insights and approaches I’ve encountered here. It’s a chance to connect global learning with local impact, and to engage communities in the vital relationship between heritage and climate resilience.

Alongside the ‘Withstanding Change’ project twinning meetings, we were able to participate in a workshop to develop an Ethio-Bath Friendship Garden at Fairfield House, honouring Emperor Haile Selassie and the historic Ethiopia–UK friendship.

These gardens will blend education, recreation, culture and environmental stewardship, by showcasing climate-resilient gardening and sustainable landscaping informed by diasporic ecological knowledge.