Ethics-Based Stewardship Practices and the Stewards—Case Studies on Public Landscape Stewardship From North Carolina,USA

The persistence of public landscapes is a critical approach to community resilience and sustainability. But in China’s landscape architectural field, it is neglected in both planning and design, and post-occupancy operations and maintenance. With the case studies of three public landscape sites in North Carolina, the United States this article introduces the concept of stewardship, and outlines the contemporary public landscape stewardship practice as management efforts predominantly driven by the landscape architect’s long-term duty and proactive care to create a sustainable landscape for the site. This article emphasizes that the essence of stewarding public landscapes lies in the ethics—the attachments to and the responsibilities and care of the land and the landscape; and modesty, discernment, and enthusiasm when facing the ever-changing socio-ecological systems—and the outcome of public landscape stewardship typically takes the form of developing and implementing new and futureoriented master plans for the sites. This article also summarizes a set of site-based principles and approaches to public landscape stewardship. Finally, based on the discussion about the case studies, this study points out the practical implications of public landscape stewardship for Chinese cities which are progressively entering into an era of inventory development. Recommendations for its application to the Chinese landscape architectural profession are further addressed.