News

On May 21st the UNU-LRT fellows participated in a tree-planting event to celebrate the International Day for Biodiversity.  This event was a part of the Green Wave Youth Education, an international campaign to educate the youth about biodiversity.  The fellows joined Icelandic school children in planting native trees, helped by the minister for the Environment, Svandís Svavardóttir, and the former president of Iceland, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir.

The fellows of the 2010 UNU-LRT programme are on their way to Iceland.  They will be the first fellows since the LRT programme was recognized as a fully fledged UNU programme in February this year.  The fellows this year come from Ethiopia, Namibia, Niger, Mongolia and Kirgizstan.  They will attend the six month training here in Iceland until October.

Toshpulat Rajabov from Uzbekistan was a LRT fellow in 2009. Since attending LRT, he has been invited to participate in two United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) projects in Uzbekistan. One of the projects concerns restoration models of desert ecosystems of degraded rangelands in Surkhandarya district, Uzbekistan. The other project is about conserving biodiversity and restoring ecosystems of the Kyzylkum desert. Toshpulat´s task is for example to assess vegetation states and to create GIS maps of vegetation associations.

Emily Mutota from Namibia, a LRT fellow from the 2008 programme, did an individual project on the Feasibility for an International Year of Landcare during her study at LRT.  Her LRT project has generated international attention and she has had the opportunity to present her project and issues related to it at three international conferences last year.  Furthermore, Emily Mutota has been invited by the Landcare International committee to present her LRT project at the Australian Landcare National Forum in Adelaide Australia next month.

The Land Restoration Training Programme has reached a very important milestone. The agreement of cooperation between the United Nations University, the Government of Iceland, the Soil Conservation Service of Iceland (SCSI), and the Agricultural University of Iceland (AUI) has now been signed by all parties. From now on the programme will be known as the United Nations University – Land Restoration Training Programme (UNU-LRT). Please note that the programme‘s homepage is now under the URL www.unulrt.is although the old URL http://www.lrt.is/ will also be active.

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.”