REAL NbS - latest update from the project team
Posted on behalf of: REAL NbS - Resilience in Eastern African Lands - Nature-based Solutions
Last updated: Tuesday, 18 November 2025
Firstly, we welcomed onboard new members of our team:
- Dr Ana Leal, a Research Fellow at Βι¶ΉΣ³» who is leading the social psychology Work Package (WP3),
- Dr Cynthia Olumba, a Research Fellow at Cranfield University who is leading on the selection and evaluation of nature-based solutions to land degradation on community-managed field plots, working alongside Jane Rickson on soil science Work Package (WP1),
- Dr Bayu Dume, a Research Assistant, working alongside Amsalu Nebiyu in Jimma, Ethiopia,
- Alpha Laizer MSc, a Research Assistant, working alonside Kelvin Mtei in Arusha, Tanzania,
- Romi Phoenix, also based at Βι¶ΉΣ³», a Research Project Officer who runs project management operations and leads on communication strategy.
We have run a series of meetings with our NGO partners, LEAD foundation, ECHO East Africa, Pastoralist Women Council, Oikos, and FARM AFRICA, and learnt a lot from our partners’ experience of implementing solutions to land degradation on the ground and challenges they sometimes face in this process.
The project team is now focused on planning the upcoming fieldwork. In September and October, we are running stakeholder workshops with participating communities in Tanzania and Ethiopia. During these, we will aim to explore the problem of land degradation from the stakeholders’ perspective, to learn from local knowledge and practice, and to co-select nature-based solutions for testing at the future steps. One of our key purposes is to establish a strong connection with the partner communities and start building long-term collaborative relationships.
Finally, we also developed our very own website. If you would like to connect with the REAL NbS project, please get in touch on realnbs@sussex.ac.uk, or follow us on to hear the latest news.
This work is supported by UK Research and Innovation Building a Green Future strategic theme, Building a Secure and Resilient World strategic theme, Natural Environment Research Council, and the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (grant number NE/Z503447/1).
Further information: /research/projects/land-degradation-nature-based-solutions/