The Institute for Landscape and Urban Studies at ETH Zurich is pleased to announce the establishment of the Working Group on Landscape Restoration through Community Pooling 2024. This initiative is open to citizen associations, activists, academic researchers, and decision-makers.
The number of citizen associations across Europe that aspire to transform their immediate landscapes for long-term community benefits in response to social, economic, and environmental challenges is constantly growing. The detrimental impact of decades of rural area destruction, resource exploitation, the prevalence of monocultures, and the general neglect of nature has left minimal space for citizens to actively engage in the creation or management of their surrounding landscapes.

This call is specifically directed at groups actively involved in implementing landscape restoration projects through communal pooling. We also welcome researchers and decision-makers interested in this field to participate. Our primary objective is to establish a network that facilitates the exchange of experiences and expertise.
The Working Group aims to bring attention to and advocate for the pivotal role of citizen associations in environmental management. We seek to underscore the significance of their contributions and promote a collaborative approach to landscape restoration.

This call invites groups actively involved in community-led landscape restoration projects, as well as researchers and policymakers with a broad interest in the theme, to participate in the working group. The objective is to establish a network for exchanging experiences, strategies, and challenges related to the implementation of landscape-scale communal projects. The working group aims to underscore and advocate for communal landscape management as a pivotal form of environmental governance during a just transition.

Please submit your application by February 10, 2024.

The first Working session is scheduled for March 7, 2024.
(Next sessions: June 2024, September 2024, and December 2024)