The GLF Journey at 10: The transformation of a conference into a global movement and vehicle for world-wide political action
January 25, 2024 | 13:30 h - 14:30 h
We'd like to invite you to our upcoming Public Lecture!
Topic: The GLF Journey at 10: The transformation of a conference into a global movement and vehicle for world-wide political action
Speaker: John Colmey, Director at Global Landscapes Forum (GLF)
The lecture will be held in hybrid mode (zoom and in-person at ZEF). Please join us at ZEF, ground floor, conference room, Genscherallee 3, 53113 Bonn, or via Zoom: https://uni-bonn.zoom-x.de/j/63933633228?pwd=NUlSOFo2TUsvYmxaeE1aQ3duUmw5Zz09
Meeting ID: 639 3363 3228
Passcode: 116872
Abstract
In November 2013, a handful of organizations hosted a small conference at the University of Warsaw alongside COP19 to revisit a 200-year-old geographical concept called the Landscape Approach. Ten years later, the Global Landscape Forum (GLF), with the support of Germany’s BMZ and BMUV, has become a global movement that reaches tens of millions of people each year and a platform for change and political action. How did it happen? What makes GLF different? Why is it continuing to grow so fast? Why did 800,000 people from 120 countries engage in a three-hour forum just two months ago? What are the lessons, and where does it go from here? Can it change the world? John Colmey’s talk will take us on a journey of the GLF. Along the way, John will share insights on the evolution of the Landscape Approach, sustainable finance, global communication trends, the latest theories of change, and where GLF hopes to be in 2030.
John Colmey is the Director of GLF and Senior Director of CIFOR-ICRAF. He has spent more than 30 years in Africa, South, East and Southeast Asia: including 10 years as the Director of Communications of CIFOR, where his team increased citations of publications more than ten times, media citations from 75 to 3000 per year, and grew all social media platforms by double and triple digits from 2009-2019. In 2013, John and his colleagues developed and launched the Global Landscapes Forum, today the world’s largest forum on integrated land use, reaching more than two billion people in 175 countries. In addition to his work at CIFOR/GLF John spent 12 years as a foreign correspondent in radio, broadcast and print, including five years with TIME Magazine where he served as Hong Kong Bureau Chief. As a journalist, he won numerous international and national awards. John has a B.S. in forestry and an M.Ag in technical communication, both from the University of Minnesota, an M.A. in economic geography from the London School of Economics, and an MS. in journalism from Columbia University in New York.
