A global authority on sustainable tourism, including the planning and design of eco-lodges in Africa, Hitesh Mehta wears Africa on his sleeve. He is also credited with creating environmental- and socialfriendly master plans for many national parks and protected areas on the continent.
This writer first met Mehta at a lecture, Africa–The First World, in Miami, Florida, where he spoke about the achievements of Africa and its inhabitants over the course of several millennia.
Mehta was born in Nairobi of Indian parents, and attended the University of Nairobi where he obtained a degree in architecture in 1985. After receiving the Aga Khan Scholarship, he attained a master’s degree in landscape architecture from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1989. Furthermore, he also represented East Africa and Kenya in firstclass cricket and played in three ICC World Cup tournaments in the late 1970s and 1980s as an all-rounder.
Mehta has consulted in 67 countries across six continents and is a recipient of multiple international awards for the physical planning of protected areas, for building design, site-planning, and landscape architecture. He shares more highlights in this interview with FORBES AFRICA:
Q. You have had an amazing career as a landscape architect especially working in Africa with national parks to create a sustainable tourism environment. How do you define landscape architecture?
A: Landscape architecture involves the planning, design, management and nurturing of built and natural environments in an eco-friendly manner. Everything outside a closed environment, for example, a building, is landscape architecture: plazas, gardens, campuses, national parks, and other protected areas.
This story is from the February - March 2024 edition of Forbes Africa.
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This story is from the February - March 2024 edition of Forbes Africa.
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