The Faculty of Geography, Universitas Gadjah Mada, has been working with experts across the globe to create a global course on “Trigger Change! Innovative Urban Solutions for Land Restoration, A Global Course”. This global course is an initiation from the G20 (Group of Twenty) and the EU (European Union). The G20 Leaders’ Declaration, issued on 22nd November 2020, launched a “Global Initiative on Reducing Land Degradation and Enhancing Conservation of Terrestrial Habitats”. This declaration brought immense impacts and efforts to mitigate the land degradation from different perspectives. Based on a voluntary basis, the G20 countries share the ambition to achieve a 50 percent reduction in the amount of degraded land by 2040. The G20 Global Land Initiative (G20-GLI) with oversight from the United Nations for Combatting Climate Change and Desertification (UNCCD), will focus on capacity building, engaging the private sector and civil society, and showcasing success.
Represented by Dr. Dyah Rahmawati Hizbaron, as urban geographer and at the same time acted as the Vice Dean of Research, Community Outreach, Cooperation and Alumni attending the event at Ain-Shams University, Cairo, Egypt, on 29th Oct, 2024 – 4th Nov, 2024. The team member to work on the sub work package within the work coming from UGM also involve Dr. rer. nat. Arry Retnowati and Utia Suarma. There are also experts from University of Oxfords (United Kingdom), TH Koeln (Germany), United Nations University – EHS (Germany), FAO (Italy), University of Cuenca (Ecuador), and Kenyatta University (Kenya), also Ain-Shams University (Egypt) discussing the five modules of the global course. The urban land restoration occurs commonly at modernized urban areas, which occurred due to urbanization, industrialization, climate change, disaster, and many other impetuses. The land degradation global course intent to formulate these following objectives:
- Linking Cities to Landscapes and Society
- Approaches to Sustainable Urban Land Management and Restoration
- Planning Instruments, Tools, and Technologies for Land-Sensitive Urban Planning
- Enabling Urban Land Restoration
- Innovation and Opportunities in and for ULR
The Faculty of Geography UGM contributes more on the Planning instruments, tools and technology for land-sensitive urban planning using spatial-statistic approach and introducing the importance of Citizen Science to the Urban Land Restoration. We do hope that the completion of this Global Course can be finalized soon so that the students and practitioners are able to access it through the UNCCD website.
