Resilience in East African Landscapes

REAL project

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Esther Githumbi

Position: Post-doctoral Researcher [Google Scholar]   Biography: I am a Late Quaternary researcher focussing on landscape changes during the Holocene. My expertise is the use of multiple proxies such as pollen, charcoal, sediment physical and chemical characteristics to develop records of vegetation change, fire history and sediment processes. I have also worked with land-cover reconstruction […]

Free hard copy of the upcoming Past Global Changes Magazine

26 March 2026PAGES is committed to providing access to paleoscience in an accessible and informative way. Past Global Changes Magazine is a free magazine with this aim, published twice annually, and delivered in hard copy format, free of charge, to those who are interested. Each issue requires a new order via the webform. This helps […]

New publication on tropical peatland burning

Thanks to Yuwan Wang and team for this analysis of multiple paleofire records across tropical peatlands! The analysis builds included data generated during the EU funded REAL project from study sites in Kenya and Tanzania (Githumbi et al., 2018a and 2018b; Courtney Mustaphi et al., 2021a and 2021b; Wang et al., 2026). ABSTRACT Tropical peatland […]

PaperStories: Something Chitinous?

Pubs@ThePub What will we find under the microscope in the next sample? Some plant remains? charcoal? animal fossils? You never fully know until you have a look through the microscope. After preparing the samples and having a look, one item really stood out. Was it a fossil plant seed? or something chitinous, from an invertebrate […]

Introducing the new MCAA brand and website

We are proud to share with you our new brand identity and website. This comprehensive update, effective immediately, improves our alignment with the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) programme and enhances compliance with accessibility requirements, ensuring a more inclusive experience for our diverse, global network. The brand is a visual evolution that reflects our new motto, […]

Montane forest changes of East Africa

Githumbi EN, Finch J, Kinyanjui RN, Courtney-Mustaphi C, Musili P, Rucina S, Lejju J, Liljenberg P, Marchant R. 2025. Late Quaternary montane forest dynamics from equatorial East Africa: a biome perspective. Journal of Biogeography 52(9): e15173. [CC BY 4.0 Open Access]

REAL project Final Report Archived in CORDIS

Resilience in East African Landscapes: Identifying critical thresholds and sustainable trajectories – past, present and future REAL Project Web Documentary “CHANGES” Project Information Grant agreement ID: 606879 Start date: 1 September 2013End date: 31 August 2017 Funded under Total cost € 3 968 063,33 Objectives (CORDIS) The strong temporal dynamics of the East African landscape […]

New publications on Kenyan wetlands

REAL PhD graduate, Esther Githumbi, has recently published two new publications on wetlands of Kenya. One study in the high elevation area of Eastern Mau Forest and another among the Amboseli wetlands, near the foothills of Kilimanjaro. REAL project members shown in bold font. Githumbi EN, Courtney Mustaphi CJ, Marchant R. in press 2021. Sedimentological, palynological […]

Pastoralists under Pressure exhibit in York

University Of York Open Lectures Date And Time Pastoralists under Pressure: Political, socioeconomic, and climate challenges in East Africa Fri, 8 Nov 2019, 18:30 GMT Add to Calendar Location Stephen Town Meeting Room, JB Morell Library, University of York, York, UK   Description Population growth, climate change and environmental degradation are just some of the challenges […]

CHANGES

REAL Project Web Documentary “CHANGES” 2017

African Archaeology Research Day

Welcome to AARD 2017 We are pleased to invite you to the 2017 African Archaeology Research Day (AARD) meeting, which will be hosted on Saturday 25 November at the Department of Archaeology, University of York. The African Archaeology Research Day has been an annual event in the UK since 2002 and the first meeting held […]

REAL ITN hosts its final conference in Moshi

Landscape Transformations and Sustainable Trajectories in East Africa– Past, Present and Future On 11 -12 July 2017, the Resilience in East African Landscapes (REAL) ITN hosted its final conference “Landscape Transformations and Sustainable Trajectories in East Africa – Past, Present, Future” at Uhuru Hotel and Conference Centre in Moshi, Tanzania. The conference provided a forum […]

REAL web documentary preview in Nairobi

On 13 May 2017 the Alliance Francaise in Nairobi, in collaboration with IFRA, the REAL ITN, CNRS and the French Embassy, organized a mini film festival to explore the diversity of scientific documentary films. Part of the film screening was a preview of parts of the REAL web documentary that traces different ways of exploring […]

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Latest News

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Free hard copy of the upcoming Past Global Changes Magazine

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Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity 2025 annual report

Interdisciplinary research on biodiversity gains and losses in the Anthropocene, funded by The … [Read More...]

Upcoming webinar at Global Wildfire Collective on savanna fires

Hear from Dr. Abigail Croker at the upcoming Global Wildfire Collective webinar about fire in … [Read More...]

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REAL is a Marie Curie Actions InnovativeTraining Network (ITN), funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme.

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Coordinating partner

Prof. Paul Lane
Department of Archaeology and Ancient History,
Uppsala University, and
Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge

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