26 August 2015
UNU-GEST Director joins the World Assembly for Women in Tokyo
UNU-GEST Director, Dr. Irma Erlingsdóttir, is participating in the World Assembly for Women - WAW! 2015 - in Tokyo on 28-29 August hosted by the Government of Japan. The Assembly aims to create a worldwide movement to promote women’s active participation and success in society
19 August 2015
UNU-LRT Friendship Forest
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.
16 August 2015
Field excursion focusing on land condition, restoration and management
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.
4 August 2015
Open Call for Research Grants
The EDDA Center at the University of Iceland is an interdisciplinary Center of Excellence in critical contemporary research, with a special emphasis on equality and diversity. EDDA now invites applications for research grants which support the mission of UNU-GEST
20 July 2015
Former UNU fellow appointed to Director position in Uganda
Former UNU-FTP fellow and scholarship recipient, Taabu Anthony Munyaho, has recently been selected for the Director position at the National Fisheries Resources Research Institute (NaFIRI) in Uganda.
17 July 2015
High-level symposium on land degradation neutrality at the third International Conference on Financing for Development
UNU-LRT participated in a high-level symposium on land degradation neutrality at the third International Conference on Financing for Development, which was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 13-16 July. The symposium was hosted by the Governments of Iceland and Namibia (on behalf of the Group of Friends on Desertification, Land Degradation and Drought) in cooperation with the State of Qatar, United Nations University, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) secretariat, UNDP and Biovision.