The Landscape Archive Foundation

Truth-tellers

The people and institutions who make landscape claims auditable — practitioners, researchers, Traditional Owner organisations, regulators, and reviewers who insist that project metadata states what was claimed and what supports it.

What we mean by truth-telling

Landscape drawings and models often look definitive while the underlying claims stay implicit — “native planting,” “climate resilient,” “sustainable,” “culturally appropriate.” The Foundation publishes the field dictionary and conformance rules so those claims can be stated precisely, evidenced, and reviewed.

Truth-telling is not a marketing slogan. It is structural: taxon IDs and growth forms in exchange bundles; banded climate context instead of hand-waved suitability; evidence links on sustainability fields; sensitivity classes that keep restricted cultural detail out of open repositories; lineage metadata on synthetic assets.

Who truth-tellers are

  • Practitioners who document species, site context, and sustainability claims in interchange bundles
  • Researchers and herbaria who supply taxonomic and trait evidence behind botanical fields
  • Traditional Owner organisations and cultural advisors who set protocol for restricted metadata
  • Regulators, certifiers, and client teams who review disclosed claims against evidence
  • Institutions — universities, councils, and public bodies — that adopt the open standard as a shared reference

The Foundation's role

The Foundation defines how honest disclosure should be encoded. It does not replace professional judgement, client sign-off, regulatory audit, or community protocol — but it gives practitioners and institutions a shared language for what was claimed and what supports it.

Open specification work is itself a form of truth-telling: criteria, schemas, and conformance checks are published where anyone can read them — distinct from vendor credentials, sales language, or unreleased models.