Restoration of degraded lands is a collaborative effort between scientists and farmers. It requires those responsible for sustaining restoration interventions and the scientists who have led the project, to be on the same page. Farmers can teach us a lot about how to restore degraded lands. They know the native species that will flourish in their soils and those that are easy and cost-effective to grow. They also know the species that their livestock like to feed on. At Project ReDEAL we’re aware of the value of the insight that farmers can bring to a project like ours and as such, we’ve spoken to local farmers during the course of the project and learnt a lot.

Our partners over at CIFOR have detailed this process. For insights into the opinions of local farmers on restoring degraded land, check out this article and take a look at our film. 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the ReDEAL Partners, University of Kabianga, is running an in-person training course in January 2022.

The course will cover content pertinent to the restoration of degraded grasslands for climate resilience and will take place at the University’s main campus in Kericho, Kenya. It will include field and lab work as well as lecture sessions hosted by scientists working on the project.

If you’d like to learn about various soil sampling and monitoring techniques, as well as identifying restoration interventions for degraded lands, be sure to check out the advert for more info. Presenters will include a variety of scientists from the University of Kabianga and the ReDEAL partner institutions.

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t miss out. Grab your spot here.

We’re excited to announce that one of the project’s Post Doctoral Research Associates, Dr Patricia, has been presenting some of her research at the British Ecological Society’s Ecology Across Borders Conference.

She provided an interesting 20 minute presentation on how we can use plant traits to restore degraded grasslands in the highlands of Kenya. She presented some data from the project and received great feedback on her work.

For more information on the conference and for other speakers: https://bit.ly/3oQPr55.

If you’d like to know more about Dr Patricia’s work try taking a look at our blog page or drop us a line @restoregrazing or to our project mailbox restoregrazing@lancaster.ac.uk

 

We’re incredibly excited to announce that a 10-minute film showcasing the work of ReDEAL has been released on the Lancaster Environment Centre’s YouTube Channel.

The film provides an incredible insight into the perceptions of local farmers towards grassland degradation and how we can solve it. It also showcases some of the experiments we have been conducting to test the impact of different soil conditions on the speed of restoration. In the film, you’ll see our project sites and also hear from those involved in the research from Lancaster and further afield.

We can’t wait for you to see it!

For any questions please drop us an email: restoregrazing@lancaster.ac.uk or send us a message on Twitter @restoregrazing.

Keep checking this website as we’ll be releasing a youth focussed film in the next few weeks. The film will showcase how our younger generations think we should solve the climate crisis.

Event alert!

On Friday 5th November from 1-3pm (GMT+3) there will be a scientific seminar hosted at one of our partner institutions, the  University of Kabianga. One of ReDEAL’s researchers, Dr Patricia de Britto Costa will be leading this event. She’ll be exploring how plant-soil interactions in natural environments are crucial to restoring degraded lands.

Dr Patricia de Britto Costa works on the ReDEAL project with an ecological focus, understanding how different plant functional traits can be utilised to restore degraded lands. She’ll be providing insights from ReDEAL’s work and international case studies to show the importance of utilising and acquiring plant nutrients for restoring degraded lands.

 

 

 

We’re incredibly excited to announce that we are hosting an event as part of the @ESRC Festival of Social Science on the 16th November at Lancaster University.
In this event we’ll be showcasing the work of Project ReDEAL with a powerful film covering two continents. Local students will also be interviewing our researchers and giving us their opinions on the work. Of course, we’ll follow all of this up with refreshments. And best of all…. it’s FREE!

If you’d like to come along and see what we’ve been up to in Kenya and meet some of our key researchers, pop onto our event listing and book your place on eventbrite. The event will take place in the Biology LT of the Lancaster Environment Centre at 4:30pm.

Check out our event listing for further details: https://festivalofsocialscience.com/events/the-power-of-african-soils-to-mitigate-climate-change-a-film-screening-of-project-redeals-work-in-kenya/

 

Just seconds before the pandemic hit in full swing, a soil analysis lab was set up at University of Kabianga, one of our partner institutions.

A blog from a scientist who works for the International Livestock Research Institute has detailed this process and it makes for an interesting read: https://mazingira.ilri.org/2020/04/07/setting-up-a-soil-analytical-laboratory-at-university-of-kabianga/.

 

In May 2021 we reached a major milestone in the project’s field work with the establishment of field trial sites in Nyando. Two trial sites were fenced off to reduce interference from livestock and to ensure a robust trial. Soil inoculum, manure and farmer practice were used as the main treatments at the trial sites. Each treatment was replicated 4 times within 8 combinations, giving 32 experimental plots per site.

Here are some pictures of a few of the plots:

German Baldi is a visiting researcher at the Lancaster Environment Centre who started working for ReDEAL in September 2021.

“I am a biologist turned geographer who enjoys finding relationships between the physical, biotic, and cultural worlds. I have worked on different objects of study, such as the agricultural use of a territory, its degradation from different interventions or stressors, and its conservation. My studies usually involve different spatial (from local to global) and temporal levels (current and historical), remote sensing, GIS, and multivariate methods. I am very fond of making comparisons between distant systems without any apparent relationship, finding common factors, as well as virtuous cases (and not so much!) of the human / nature relationship. I come from Argentina, where I am part of the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research, as well as two National Universities. I enjoy walking, swimming and kayaking, but slowly… to see the landscape properly.”  German Baldi