Land use is key for achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in an increasingly threatened global environment. Should land system science produce a unifying vision for the planet? How do global narratives for use of land correspond to what people want when striving for access to land across diverse and distinctive regions? How can we support transformations that mutually reinforce global sustainability visions and goals, and people’s aspirations and needs?

Land system science scholars will be confronting such questions at the fourth Open Science Meeting of the Global Land Programme (GLP 4th OSM 2019). It will be held from the 24-26 of April 2019 in Bern, Switzerland and will focus on topics and themes that aim to advance our understanding of how land systems can form the basis for sustainability transformations.

The land system science community is organized within the Global Land Programme (GLP), a Global Research Project of the Future Earth initiative. GLP is an interdisciplinary community of science and practice fostering the study of land systems and the co-design of solutions for global sustainability and represents the largest international research network in this field.

This conference represents a unique opportunity to build and enhance scientific capacity and enable transformations to a sustainable future by identifying core questions, synthesizing research, and setting future agendas.  Conference attendees will strive to develop connections between researchers and stakeholders from civil society, government, and the private sector, and to bridge science and decision-making for sustainable management and governance of land use worldwide.