Recently, the final conference of the International University Cooperation on Land Degradation in European-Asiatic Countries (IUCLAND) project, co-funded by the EU Erasmus+ Programme, was held at FNU. More than 30 academicians of 12 universities and research centers from the 6 European-Asiatic countries of the project partners (China, Italy, Slovakia, Croatia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan), attended the meeting. This international conference mainly covered land conservation stakeholders’ workshop, results reporting and sustainability of the project.
At the conference, the representatives focused on the results achieved throughout the project development, project quality control management, final progress report, project budget implementation, sustainability of the project and so on. The academician representatives from Huazhong Agricultural University, Institute of Soil Science of Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Molise (Italy), Slovak University of Agriculture, University of Zagreb (Croatia) and FNU respectively made special reports and conducted round-table discussions and exchanges. The representatives also took a field trip to Fuzhou mountain areas for Sustainable Development and Utilization Project.
Since the IUCLAND project was approved in 2015, the project partners have organized 11 workshops in the form of webinars, 6 summer schools and 5 international project meetings. Over 700 postgraduates (including PhD students) and teachers have been involved in the international training. The project has promoted educational exchanges and cooperation among universities and research centers of the European-Asiatic countries, and deepened exchanges and international technological cooperation in land degradation mitigation strategies.
(Translated by Zhou Yanling, reviewed by Xie Xiujuan)