News

The UNU-LRT team in Iceland sends you their best wishes for the upcoming Festive Season and a Happy New year 2011!  At the end of the year we look back at the progress made, and achievements and milestones reached in 2010.  Please see our recap here.     

Jafaru Adam Musah from Ghana was a LRT fellow in 2009. He has taken on many new responsibilities in his work since returning from Iceland.  One is the “Ghana Environmental Management Project” (GEMP). GEMP’s prime objective is to assist communities to identify local and community-based activities that can help mitigating desertification and drought.  Jafaru says that the training he got during the LRT programme has given him good skills for such a work and has motivated him to participate in such projects.

On October 7th the first six fellows graduated since the Land Restoration Training programme became a part of the United Nations University.  The graduated fellows are from Ethiopia, Kyrgyzstan, Namibia, Niger, and Mongolia.   At the graduation ceremony the fellow presented their individual project work which they worked on during the latter part of the programme.

 Last week this year’s fellows travelled around Iceland to learn first-hand about land degradation problems and how they are being approached. 

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.