News

At the UN climate summit in Copenhagen last month, the Iceland Minister for the Environment, Svandis Svavarsdottir, gave a speech on behalf of Iceland. In her speech, she said: “Afforestation and revegetation on eroded lands are important parts of Iceland's climate strategy. We can and must conserve and reclaim forests and wetlands to help the climate as well as biodiversity. Better land use, supported by robust science and verifiable reporting, is an important factor in climate mitigation.”

Dear fellows and friends of LRT.  The LRT team wishes you all the best for the festive season and a happy new year. We thank you for your enthusiasms and commitment to work towards our common goal in restoring degraded land and working towards sustainable land management. Keep up the good work! Please read the LRT season's greetings here.        

LRT was visited on December 11th by two fellows of the Gender Equality Training (GET) Programme and its Project Manager, Dr. Annadís Gréta Rúdólfsdóttir.  The fellows of the GET programme are Latifa Hamidi and Hafiz Noori, both from Afghanistan. The LRT is very pleased with being able to share its experience with the GET programme and to meet with their first fellows.

A workshop to review and enhance the curriculum of the Land Restoration Training Programme was held at the Agricultural University of Iceland on December 4th and 5th.  Around 25 people attended the workshop and shared their experiences of the LRT programme and participated in fruitful discussions on how to enhance the current programme.  Many good ideas germinated during the workshop and will be developed further and built into the programme.  Ingrid Gevers from Wageningen International in the Netherlands facilitated the workshop and assisted with curriculum development.  

Welcome to the new LRT website!  Here you can get an overview of the programme, its objectives, its history, the fellows that have attended the programme, and more.  You can find specific information about admission to the programme, how fellows are selected and from what countries.  Individual projects of each fellow are also accessible here.  The latest news will be posted here to keep you informed about our work.

Six LRT fellows who participated in the second full six month training programme graduated on October the 1st 2009.  This is the third graduation since the initiation of the LRT programme, but the first fellows where offered a seven week training programme in 2007.  This year the fellows came from Ghana, Ethiopia, Uganda, Mongolia and Uzbekistan.