
22 June 2016
Masterclass with Dr Jane Goodall
Last week, the UNU-LRT fellows met and discussed with the renowned scientist, wildlife conservation activist and UN Messenger of Peace, Dr Jane Goodall, in a masterclass held at the University of Iceland. The masterclass with the UNU-LRT fellows and graduate students from the University of Iceland, was a part of Dr Goodall‘s program in Iceland, where she also gave an open lecture and met with conservation and wildlife enthusiasts.

10 June 2016
Guest lecturer teaching rangeland ecology and management
This week UNU-LRT welcomed this year’s international guest lecturer, Dr Patrick Shaver. He gave a series of lectures on ecological processes and grazing management principles; land health, inventory and monitoring; and grazing management schemes and case studies. Dr Shaver also gave an open lecture at the National Museum of Iceland on the management history and condition of rangelands in USA and how rangeland condition today is historically tied to policy and actions in the past.

20 April 2016
Fellows visit SCSI HQ and horticultural campus of AUI
Recently the UNU-LRT fellows visited Gunnarsholt, the headquarters of the Soil Conservation Service of Iceland (SCSI) in South Iceland. The Director of SCSI, Mr Sveinn Runolfsson, welcomed the group and presented each fellow with the book Healing the land by Roger Croft, which tells the story of land reclamation and soil conservation in Iceland. Ms Anne Bau, biologist at SCSI, showed the fellows around Gunnarsholt and the facilities there. The fellows will live in Gunnarsholt for two months in the summer or from mid-June to mid-August while they work on their individual research projects.

23 March 2016
New group of fellows for the 2016 training programme
Once again we at UNU-LRT welcome a new group of fellows for the six-months training programme. This time the group consists of five women and six men from seven countries: Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia in Central Asia, Ghana and Niger in West Africa, Uganda in East Africa and Malawi and Lesotho in Southern Africa.
We look very much forward to working with the energetic group of fellows in the coming months.

18 March 2016
New review paper on sandy deserts
A large review paper on the sandy deserts in Iceland was recently published in the Aeolian Research journal, titled: The Icelandic volcanic aeolian environment: Processes and impacts — A review. Iceland has extensive sandy deserts and rates among the dustiest places on Earth. Preventing land degradation and restoring many of these deserts is a major challenge for the Icelandic society, just as it is in many of the severely degraded areas within the developing countries. The conditions in Iceland, the severe land degradation and active restoration efforts are among the reasons for the location of the UN University Land Restoration Training Programme. Such publication is valuable for teaching and research purposes at UNU-LRT.

18 December 2015
Season´s greetings
The year 2015 will soon come to an end and 2016 is about to commence. This was a productive year for UNU-LRT and we thank our collaborators for good cooperation in 2015 and wish you all a prosperous New Year 2016 and success in raising awareness of the importance of combating land degradation and restoring degraded land.