News

UNU-LRT is collaborating in the development of a short massive open online course (MOOC) on sheep grazing, management and land conservation in Iceland. This micro-MOOC titled Sheep in the Land of Fire and Ice examines the sustainability of sheep grazing in Iceland and explores how history, socioeconomic factors and environmental conditions have influenced the management of grazing resources. Grazing management is a common challenge in many regions of the world, and this course uses Iceland as a case study because here traditional sheep grazing has been associated with extensive environmental degradation.

The 11th SER Europe conference was held in Reykjavík, Iceland from 9-13 September. The main theme of the conference was Restoration in the Era of Climate Change. UNU-LRT had very good presence at the conference as all 17 fellows in the UNU-LRT six-month training programme this year took part in the conference, as well as 17 former UNU-LRT fellows. All were sponsored by UNU-LRT to attend the conference.

On 14 September 17 fellows graduated from the annual six-month training programme at UNU-LRT. The graduation of the 10 women and 7 men was celebrated with a ceremony at the Keldnaholt research campus of the Agricultural University of Iceland. Two of the graduating fellows came from Tajikistan, a new UNU-LRT partner country. Other fellows from Asia came from Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, and fellows from Africa came from Ethiopia, Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, and Uganda.

The UNU-LRT fellows in this years’ six-month training programme are finalizing their research projects these days. They have been working on their projects for the last months under the supervision of specialists from various institutes and organizations in Iceland. This week they presented their research findings in an open seminar at the research campus of the Agricultural University of Iceland.

An important part of the training in the UNU-LRT six-month training programme are field excursions where the fellows learn about land degradation challenges, successes and failures in land restoration, and discuss with local people working in the field. Last week the fellows were on an excursion in the North of Iceland where they visited diverse sites revealing how land condition has been improved with various innovative solutions, often under harsh conditions.

Mongolia has an unparalleled monitoring programme on rangeland health. A wealth of data is collected every year in a systematic way, at many sites throughout this vast country. The high-quality data collected provides opportunities to communicate and synthesize this knowledge, so that it can be translated into effective policy making for sustainable rangeland use.