Long term monitoring & research in drylands

Dr. Kaplina received her MS in 1979 from Moscow Forest Engineering Institute, which is now Moscow State Forest University, and her Ph.D. in 1989, V.N. from the Sukachev Institute of Forest of Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). In addition to her time there as a researcher and Ph.D. student, she has been a senior researcher at the Institute since 1995. Dr. Kaplina's research interests include: forest stand growth, increment, development, condition and net primary production. Some of her recent research projects have been: Stability and productivity of oak stands in the south forest-steppe of Russia, Primary productivity of birch and pine forests in the European Russia, Productivity and vertical structure of crown mass of pine forests and Empirical modeling of the form of a tree stem and its increment. Dr Kaplina has been published in more than 80 scientific papers, including 20 refereed articles in scientific journals.

Dr. Sekhwela has been working for the University of Botswana since 1985, and holds a PhD in Botany from the University of Queensland in Australia. His PhD research focused on the production ecology of woody biomass in the dry Kalahari Desert of Botswana, as part of establishing long term ecological monitoring. The study built on his ecological research work that focuses on environmental and natural resources production, supply and impact of utilisation which was carried at the now defunct National Institute of Development Research and Documentation (NIR) that carried out applied research in support of Government development efforts between 1985 and 2000. He later continued the work at the Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Centre (HOORC) at the University of Botswana, from 2001 to 2004 when he joined the University Office of Research and Development as an Assistant Director for Research Quality Management. His publications cover biomass production and utilisation, natural resource assessments and management prospects, adaptation to climate change and ecological research on various vegetation and other resources used by rural communities. Ongoing research focuses on climate change and likely impacts on ecosystem services in relation to resource use by rural communities and possible adaptation based on indigenous knowledge systems and other international programmes such as REDD.

Professor and Geographer Elena Mar?a Abraham is a Scientific Researcher, Director of LADYOT (Laboratory of Desertification and Land Planning and Management) and Director of IADIZA (Argentine Institute for Research on Arid Lands). She is the leader of an interdisciplinary team devoted to research and management of drylands. She is working, on the one hand, on developing methodological frameworks able to consolidate integrated, participative and multi-scale approaches to desertification assessment, showing the severity of desertification as a global and local issue and, on the other hand, on the generation of local development strategies, production diversification and combat of desertification and poverty in the Monte desert, Argentina.
She was a member of the 25 high-level Experts Group in charge of reviewing the functioning of the UNCCD's Science and Technique Committee.
To date she has published over 215 contributions to the knowledge of theoretical, methodological and application aspects related to the environment and human settlements in arid areas, among which 11 books, 36 papers in scientific journals and more than 60 book chapters are to be highlighted.