News

For the last eight weeks the UNU-LRT fellows have stayed at the headquarters of the Soil Conservation Service of Iceland (SCSI) where they have worked on their research projects and got to know the work of SCSI. Before moving back to the headquarters of UNU-LRT, at the research campus of the Agricultural University of Iceland, they planted the first trees in a prospective UNU-LRT Friendship Forest, close to SCSI headquarters in South Iceland. Future UNU-LRT fellows will continue the tradition to plant trees in the area each year, and will have the opportunity to enjoy the trees as they grow. The fellows planted rowan trees (Sorbus aucuparia), a native species that grows in the birch woodlands and forests in Iceland.

The UNU-LRT fellows have just finished a four day excursion to the west and northwest of Iceland. The main goal was to provide the fellows with first-hand experience on land management issues and how human land use can have a major impact on land condition. Sites were visited that illustrate how past human land use reduced the resilience of the land to the extent that when combined with natural factors it resulted in almost complete loss of vegetation and soil. Such collapsed ecosystems take very long to restore even though much effort is put into restoration, and former productivity may be hard to reach as could vividly be observed in the excursion.