News

Once again we welcome a new group of fellows for our six-month training programme. The 2019 UNU-LRT fellows will stay for six-months at UNU-LRT to advance their knowledge and skills on halting land degradation, restoring degraded land and managing land in a sustainable way. The fellows are 21 this year, 10 men and 11 women, and come from 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Central-Asia: Ghana, Malawi, Uganda, Niger, Lesotho, Ethiopia, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The fellows are all experts in their respective countries working on issues related to land use and land management.

Last week, UNU-LRT received a visit from six Mongolian specialists from three partner institutions of UNU-LRT in Mongolia. The purpose of their visit was to prepare for a course that will be held in Mongolia in May, with specialists from UNU-LRT, the Agricultural University of Iceland and the Soil Conservation Service of Iceland. The seven-day course entitled "Communicating knowledge for sustainable rangeland management under climate change – improving analytic and reporting skills” was taught for the first time last year. The course is co-organized and held by UNU-LRT and three Mongolian partner institutions. Besides working on preparation for the course, the visitors gave presentations for the staff and students at the Agricultural University of Iceland. Furthermore, UNU-LRT held an open seminar at the National Museum of Iceland where Dr Bulgamaa Densambuu, rangeland ecologist and former UNU-LRT fellow, gave a talk on means to improve land health and livelihoods of nomadic herders in Mongolia.

UNU-LRT has created a massive open online course (MOOC) on Business Model Innovation for Sustainable Landscape Restoration, with its partners in the ENABLE consortium. The course is open for all and free of charge. This is the second MOOC co-created by UNU-LRT and the ENABLE consortium members. It builds upon ENABLE’s first MOOC, which offered comprehensive knowledge of landscape degradation and restoration from the perspectives of natural sciences, economics and business administration. This new MOOC is inter- and transdisciplinary, designed for environmental- and business students and professionals, as well as anyone with an interest in landscape restoration based on sustainable business models. The course addresses the challenges of large-scale landscape restoration with a partnership approach and reflects the interconnectedness of nature, society and economy in landscape management.

Dear friends of UNU-LRT. The year 2018 will soon come to an end. On that occasion we would like to thank everyone we have collaborated with during the year and we look forward to a continuing collaboration. We send our best wishes for the festive season ahead and wish you a Happy New Year.

In celebration of the Word Soil Day on 5 December, the ENABLE consortium announced the creation of a new massive open online course (MOOC) on Business Model Innovation for Sustainable Landscape Restoration, which is now open for registration. The MOOC is co-created by UNU-LRT and other partners in the ENABLE consortium and will be launched on 14 February 2019.

A two-day Experiential Learning module, developed by the ENABLE consortium, was held in southeast Spain in late October. The interactive field excursions focused on equipping the participants with the skills and knowledge required to restore landscapes while bringing back social, cultural, and financial benefits to society. Participants experienced the impacts of land degradation on nature, society and economy, and studied how to prevent degradation. They also experienced different solutions to restore landscapes based on sustainable business models, and explored the importance of land restoration for ecosystem services. UNU-LRT sponsored two participants from UNU-LRT partner organizations to attend the Experiential Learning module. They were Irene Jamilatu Yenuyet Yaro from the Environmental Protection Agency in Ghana and Enkh‐Amgalan Tseelei from the National Federation of Pasture User Groups of Herders (NFPUG) in Mongolia.