News

The International Conference on Soil Carbon Sequestration for Climate, Food Security and Ecosystem Services held in Reykjavik 27-29 May, was a great success according to the UNU-LRT fellows who all attended the conference. The conference participants came from impressingly many countries from all over the world. The UNU-LRT fellows had a presentation in the conference‘s plenary session on the first day of the conference titled: Soil carbon and the quest for land quality – Experiences from Africa and Asia. Ms. Wellencia Clara Mukaru gave the presentation on behalf of the eleven fellows.

UNU-LRT had a guest lecturer last week when Dr. Richard Thomas, from the UNU Institute for Water, Environment & Health (UNU-INWEH) in Canada, gave the UNU-LRT fellows lectures on management of dryland resources. Dr. Thomas has worked for UNU-INWEH for almost 5 years where he is the Assistant Director for the Dryland Ecosystems Programme.

This week, the fellows visited Thingvellir National Park as well as selected farmers that live in the neighbouring areas. The fellows' assignment for the visit was to interview stakeholders in the area, which will be used in stakeholder analysis later on. The fellows interviewed farmers, staff of the National Park and others that in some way make use of the park. The focus was on sustainable land management of the natural resources within the area.

On Monday, 22 April, the UNU-LRT fellows visited Gunnarsholt, the headquarters of The Soil Conservation Service of Iceland (SCSI), where they will be staying for two months during the summer. The fellows were welcomed by the director of SCSI, Sveinn Runólfsson, and Magnús H. Jóhannsson, Department Head of Research and Development, at Sagnagarður, the Visitor's Centre. Sveinn and Magnús took the fellows through the Centre and gave an overview of the history of land restoration in Iceland.

Mr. Batbaatar Amgaa, a fellow in the 2012 six-month training programme, defended his MSc thesis at the National University of Mongolia on 28 February. In his work Mr. Amgaa focused on the effects of grazing and topography on plant biomass allocation in the mountain steppe of northern Mongolia.

UNU-LRT welcomes a new staff member. Ms. Halldora Traustadottir recently started working full time for the programme as office manager. She has BA in Anthropolgy from the University of Iceland and MA in Development Studies and Educational Studies from Roskilde University in Denmark. Furthermore, Halldora was recently awarded a postgraduate diploma in Applied Gender Studies from the University of Iceland.