The natural, physical, and social studies of climate change, the environment, and our food systems are vital to tackling today’s environmental challenges. For young students looking to dive deep into research, gaining field and laboratory experience is essential. My internship at the International Livestock Research Institute’s (ILRI) Mazingira Centre offered me the means of doing … Continue reading
Author Archives: Sonja Leitner
Mazingira Centre – a role model for environmental research infrastructure in Africa
Climate change threatens the livelihoods of millions of people in Africa. The rise in global temperatures, changes in rainfall, and the increase of extreme weather conditions all pose a serious risk to the agricultural sector and food and nutrition security. At the same time, Africa is currently the most uncertain region with regard to global … Continue reading
Environmental externalities and greenhouse gas emissions from water pans and bomas in pastoral systems
IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, Karlsruhe Institute for Technology, and ILRI’s Mazingira Centre join forces to study the role of water pans and bomas in pastoral systems On Oct 25, Gretchen Gettel and Tibor Stigter from IHE Delft arrived at the Mazingira Center in Nairobi. Together with Klaus Butterbach-Bahl from Karlsruhe Institute for Technology … Continue reading
Digging into Bomas
In a new international research effort, scientists from ILRI’s Mazingira Centre (Kenya), Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (Germany), and the Sustainable Agroecosystems Group at ETH Zurich (Switzerland) are teaming up to take a sharp look at the underlying mechanisms of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from bomas. N2O is a potent greenhouse gas, originating mostly from agricultural … Continue reading
A field visit to support climate-smart sustainable agro-pastoralism in East Africa
On 1 Sep 2021, scientists Sonja Leitner and Claudia Arndt from the Mazingira Centre of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi, Kenya, hosted a group of international researchers on ILRI’s Kapiti Research Station in Machakos County. They were supported in the field by farm manager Nehemiah Kimengich and field technician Nelson Kipchirchir from … Continue reading