Field Books

Dr. Ninh Khac Ban from the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (see Which Rattan is That? and An Unusual Rattan) arrived in New York last week. He brought with him 15 orange field books (shown above on the floor of my office) filled with inventory data from six Nature Reserves in the Central Truong Son Mountains of Vietnam (see Rattan Workshop and Glimpses of Transects). Over a period of eight months, our inventory crews completed 960 rattan transects, and counted, measured, identified, and spatially referenced 175, 295 rattans. This is arguably the largest quantitative inventory of rattans ever conducted. [NOTE: I am giddy at the possibilities here].