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A set of 17 Global Goals for Sustainable Development were formally adopted at a special UN summit in New York on 25-27 September. The goals raise great expectations and set the stage for the next 15 years. Their predecessors, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), focused mainly on the human aspects of development. The Global Goals go beyond this by integrating the role of ecosystems in sustaining human well-being. This is a major step forward, in that the new goals seek to ensure a better balance between economic growth and environmental protection.

On Thursday 17 September thirteen fellows graduated from the UNU-LRT six-month training programme; seven women and six men. The graduates come from Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Namibia, and Uganda in Sub-Saharan Africa, and from Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia in Central Asia. At the graduation ceremony the UNU-LRT Director, Dr Hafdis Hanna Aegisdottir, the Permanent Secretary of State, Mr Stefan Haukur Johannesson, and the Chair of the UNU-LRT Board, Mr Sveinn Runolfsson, addressed the fellows and guest. Addresses were also given by two graduating fellows, Ms Uuganzaya Myagmarjav from Mongolia and Mr Emmanuel Chidiwa Mbewe from Malawi, who spoke on behalf of the 2015 cohort of fellows.

This week the UNU-LRT fellows presented their research projects at an open seminar at the research campus of the Agricultural University of Iceland. The projects were very diverse, ranging from studies on for example restoration treatment effects on soils, vegetation and water processes to studies on socioeconomic constraints affecting the adoption of sustainable land management practises and policies in fellows’ countries. The presentations inspired discussions on how the results of the different research projects can help guide us to more successful solutions with regards to land management and policy issues.

This week UNU-LRT held a symposium on capacity building to restore resilient ecosystems in developing countries at the 6th World Conference on Ecological Restoration in Manchester, England. Beside presenting the UNU-LRT programme, two former UNU-LRT fellows from Mongolia and Ghana gave talks on the restoration needs and actions in their countries. Professionals from other capacity building initiatives shared their experiences and views on the needs and effectiveness of capacity building. Diverse issues were covered, ranging from the critical importance of socio-ecological resilience to ensure the welfare of poor people who often depend on natural resources, to the challenges of sustaining institutional capacity in politically unstable states, to exciting new mobile phone technologies that have the potential to increase the success of restoration practices and projects.

For the last eight weeks the UNU-LRT fellows have stayed at the headquarters of the Soil Conservation Service of Iceland (SCSI) where they have worked on their research projects and got to know the work of SCSI. Before moving back to the headquarters of UNU-LRT, at the research campus of the Agricultural University of Iceland, they planted the first trees in a prospective UNU-LRT Friendship Forest, close to SCSI headquarters in South Iceland. Future UNU-LRT fellows will continue the tradition to plant trees in the area each year, and will have the opportunity to enjoy the trees as they grow. The fellows planted rowan trees (Sorbus aucuparia), a native species that grows in the birch woodlands and forests in Iceland.

The UNU-LRT fellows have just finished a four day excursion to the west and northwest of Iceland. The main goal was to provide the fellows with first-hand experience on land management issues and how human land use can have a major impact on land condition. Sites were visited that illustrate how past human land use reduced the resilience of the land to the extent that when combined with natural factors it resulted in almost complete loss of vegetation and soil. Such collapsed ecosystems take very long to restore even though much effort is put into restoration, and former productivity may be hard to reach as could vividly be observed in the excursion.