News

This week the UNU-LRT fellows presented their research projects in an open seminar at the research campus of the Agricultural University of Iceland. The research projects address a wide range of issues linked to land condition and management such as assessment of how existing wetland policies and laws in Uganda address the drivers of wetland degradation; effects of increasing droughts, due to climate change, on pest damage in Ghana; assessment of land degradation and drivers of degradation in Mongolia; impact of watershed management on land cover change in Ethiopia; designing restoration plan based on land condition assessment; and use of the arts to promote environmental awareness in Ghana. One of the outputs of the project work was a song by Beatrice Dossah, inspired by her work on environmental art education in Ghana. You can see the seminar programme here.

Dr Maryam Niamir-Fuller, an expert on international sustainable development, was the main international guest lecturer at the UNU-LRT six-month training programme this year. Dr Niamir-Fuller gave three interactive lectures on rangelands, livestock and land restoration. She focused on how to move towards sustainability in the extensive and intensive livestock sectors, proposing a conceptual framework model to transform the sectors. Dr Niamir-Fuller was also the keynote speaker at an open meeting hosted by UNU-LRT at the National Museum of Iceland on 17 August. Her talk was entitled: Breaking silos: The design and implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, where she focused on how different sectors can cooperate on achieving an integrated implementation of the SDG´s.

Recently, UNU-LRT welcomed Dr Lindsay Stringer and Dr Claire Quinn from the University of Leeds in the UK. Dr Stringer gave a lecture at UNU-LRT on the economics of land degradation and sustainable land management. In her talk she introduced the ELD 6+1 step methodology and shared results from a cost-benefit study of sustainable land management uptake for individual farmers in Kenya. Her talk spurred lively discussions facilitated by both Dr Stringer and Dr Quinn.

UNU-LRT held a workshop at the Estoril Conferences last week together with its partners in the ENABLE consortium. The theme of the workshop was Linking migration, land degradation, and land restoration: potential for sustainable livelihoods. At the workshop, two former UNU-LRT fellows, Dr Bulgamaa Densambuu from Mongolia and Mr Moustapha Ibrahim from Niger, shared experiences on restoration work in their countries. In their talks they showcased the benefits land restoration brings to local communities, such as employment, food security and business opportunities. This improves the livelihoods and living condition of local people and reduces the need to migrate.

UNU-LRT will carry out a short course in Uganda in September this year with its Ugandan partner institutions, the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) and Makerere University. The short course will be on sustainable land management, land restoration and linkages with climate change. In mid-May, the Ugandan members of the curriculum development team visited Iceland to attend a working meeting with their counterparts from UNU-LRT, in order to develop the short course curriculum.

UNU-LRT has created a massive open online course (MOOC) on Landscape restoration for sustainable development: A business approach, with its partners in the ENABLE partnership. The course will be launched on 1 May and will be open for all and free of charge. The course is designed for business students and professionals as well as anyone with an interest in business-driven landscape restoration. This is an exciting opportunity to spread the knowledge of how restoring degraded landscapes can return natural, social and financial capital that supports people’s livelihoods and wellbeing. For more information about the MOOC see this teaser video and flyer.