Pearls 2. Climate Justice and the Value of People-Led Urban River Regeneration

WHY: Today, cities around the world are challenged by a lack of resilience to the adverse effects of climate change and segregated urban development. While economic development has contributed to these challenges – including the degradation of ecosystems – poor and marginalized populations are disproportionately affected. Urban populations have also made indiscriminate use of their rivers. Rivers struggle with either drought and flooding, and pollution, putting both ecosystems and communities at risk. Fortunately, however, it is becoming easier to understand how to restore the environment while also promoting environmental and climate justice - and urban rivers have a special role to play in this.Rivers are described as the arteries of life for entire regions. We consider them essential points of sustainable urban change.
WHAT: The aim of this networking event is to promote local action for sustainable cities and communities towards more inclusive, more liveable, more prosperous and more climate-friendly cities. The event will consolidate and grow the outputs and outcomes achieved so far to promote a new community of knowledge and practice on People Centered and Resilient Spaces related to Urban Rivers (PEARLS). PEARLS was launched at WUF11 and has gained considerable momentum since then, for example through the organization of events as part of World Habitat Day 2022 and New York Water Week 2023, an ongoing comprehensive document review, the design of a database of better practice case studies, and in-depth research on wights cases through its academic partners.
The central assumption of PEARLS is that social and environmental sustainability are closely intertwined, and therefore the success of urban transformation will depend on social justice and resilience. While the urban public realm plays a crucial role in promoting both collective and individual resilience, communities are crucial as: "it all starts at home".
HOW: The cross-sectoral event features speakers from four regions (Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America) representing government, academia, CSOs, INGOs, and the private sector. It includes four keynote presentations highlighting the value of socially just and community-based approaches to urban river restoration, a panel discussion and a general networking session.
WHO: The event is led by the Urban Ecological Planning Program at NTNU, Norway , together with the Public Space Programme at UN-Habitat, and the World Resources Institute. Associated partners represent local government (Johannesburg and Belém), civil society (Habitat Norge), academia (Nile University, Giza) and practice (Kota Kita, KDI). We are particularly happy to partner with the City of Belém and their major Mr. Edmilson Rodrigues. Belém will be hosting the COP 30 in 2025 and Mr Rodrigues is currently the President of the Amazon Cities Forum.