Research and capacity building for forest landscape restoration in Rwanda: An exchange between scientists, practitioners, and students from Yale and Rwanda at Yale University
Details
Note: Yale School of the Environment (YSE) was formerly known as the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES). News articles and events posted prior to July 1, 2020, refer to the School's name at that time.
Summary
This week-long in-person event hosted by ELTI on Yale’s campus in New Haven, Connecticut, will provide an opportunity to bring together Rwanda-based researchers, members of the Yale community, and external scholars with thematic expertise. A cohort of four scientists and researchers visiting from Rwanda will be joined by incoming ELTI postdoctoral fellow Dr. Jean Aime Ruticumugambi and ELTI Rwanda program manager Grace Bachmann. This event is designed to:
- Promote the exchange of ideas and knowledge to advance research and training in native species reforestation.
- Explore possible collaboration among scholars, researchers, practitioners, and students on Rwanda-based research projects.
- Provide Rwanda-based researchers and practitioners with contacts, information, and examples for building their institutional capacity and training/learning opportunities.
Content
The event, hosted by ELTI’s New Haven-based team, will include a day-long collaborative workshop to share advances, troubleshoot challenges, and discuss innovative approaches to native species reforestation research. The group will participate in a symposium and reception open to the Yale community and will have opportunities for informal meetings based on their interest and projects. They will attend a BIOMES talk and lunch, the annual International Society for Tropical Foresters (ISTF) conference, and visit the Yale-Myers Forest Camp to learn about New England forestry, silviculture, and maple syrup production, weather permitting.
The visit to YMF will also include discussions about how the teaching model inspired ELTI’s global training landscapes approach and how best it can be adapted to the Rwandan context. YMF functions as a laboratory for teaching, management, and research for students, scientists, and New England landowners. Yale-Myers, where active management, interdisciplinary research, and local knowledge converge, inspired the training landscapes central to ELTI’s place-based training approach. Across each ELTI program, model farms, demonstration sites, and protected areas all form part of the learning laboratories, or training landscapes, and are the core of ELTI’s blended and field-based courses, collaborative research and knowledge co-creation projects, as well as Leadership Program support.