The International Ecocity Conference Series addresses the way humanity builds its home — its cities, towns and villages.
Finalale, 8th International Ecocity Conference, Istabul, Turkey, 2009
Highly motivated and effective change-makers focus on key actions cities and citizens can take to rebuild our human habitat in balance with living systems, and, in the process, slow down and even reverse global heating, biodiversity collapse, loss of wilderness habitat, agricultural lands and open space, and social and environmental injustices.
This world-renown series was first held in Berkeley California in 1990, and has since had seven subsequent conference in Adelaide Australia, Yoff Senegal, Curitiba Brazil, Shenzhen China, Bangalore India, San Francisco and Istanbul Turkey. The next conference is scheduled for Montreal, Canada, August 2011.
Link to 9th International Ecocity Conference Website
Past conferences have featured a wide range of leaders and innovators, including environmentalist David Brower, Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, Rusong Wang, member of the Chinese Peoples Congress and head of the environmental sciences division of the Chinese Academy of Science, renowned architect and urban planner Jamie Lerner, former mayor of Curitia, Brazil, architect/philosopher Paolo Soleri, former mayor of San Francisco Gavin Newsom, and Denis Hayes, director of the original national Earth Day in 1970 and keynote for the first Ecocity Conference.
Bottom line: We want to unite people around a new way of living on the planet that provides the best possible cities for people to live in while enhancing, not destroying, the biosphere.