The Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU) established its Sustainable Cities and Landscape Hub (SCL) in 2016, which aims to unite universities and industries from the Pacific Rim to promote sustainable development of urban landscape. Under this platform, Shanghai Jiao Tong University launched the Urban Landscape Biodiversity (ULB) Working Group in 2021 to further explore how to achieve more resilient and dynamic urban environmental protection and development, to enhance biodiversity, to promote comprehensive social and ecological values such as public recreation, environmental education and green economy. Since the establishment of the working group in July, 2021, we have held two webinars with leading scholars from the United States, Australia, India, China explaining how to achieve resilient urban landscapes and biodiversity through approaches such as landscape planning, design and ecological conservation. The series of event has attracted more than 30,000 audience online worldwide.

The 5th Annual Sustainable Cities and Landscape Conference has successfully held from 6 – 9 September at Hawaii. Shanghai Jiao Tong University supported by APRU, co-hosted a ULB Working Group Session and an online Student Symposium titled “Reconciling Cities with Nature in the Post Covid Era：Landscape Approaches and Strategies” on the 8th and 9th September.

On September 8, ULB Working Group Session was held. Moderated by MO Fei, the working group leader and lecturer from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, LUO Peng, Director of the International Affairs Division of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and CHE Shengquan, representative of APRU SCL Hub and Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and all working group members attended the meeting. Ken Yocom, co-leader of the working group and Professor at the University of Washington, introduced the 2022-2023 annual plan of the working group and proposed the working group’s vision of building more adaptive and resilient green infrastructure solutions. Afterwards, the group members delivered their report and followed by a free symposium.

On September 9, the Student Symposium was held online. Cheng Jinhua, Deputy Dean of the Graduate School of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Han Ting, Deputy Dean of the School of Design, attended and delivered opening remarks. Wang Hao, a PhD candidate from the School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, and Liang Anze, a PhD candidate from the School of Design, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, respectively presided over two parallel forums. 16 graduate students from more than 10 first-class universities around the Pacific Rim, including University of Sheffield, National University of Singapore, University of Malaya, Tsinghua University, Fudan University, Tongji University, Beijing Forestry University, etc., delivered oral reports and shared their latest academic progress. The participating young scholars discussed their latest research results on public space, waterfront cities, biodiversity, natural healing and other aspects in the post-Covid era.

During the conference, the steering committees of the Hub held two meetings. Chaired by Yekang Ko, the Director of the platform and Associate Professor of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Oregon, representatives of the committees and 10 working group leaders of 19 universities attended the meeting. Professor Che Shengquan, the representative of Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s research platform, and Dr. Mo Fei, the leader of the Urban Landscape Biodiversity (ULB) working group, attended the meeting. At the meeting, Yekang Ko introduced the aim of the 2022 annual meeting and the schedule of each working group. They listened to the reports from the working groups and reported the alliance plan to participate in academic activities, research cooperation, cooperative teaching among APRU members.