Team One

Team One from the Oronjia workshop (see More Oronjia) entering the data from their transects [NOTE: They did a total of 53 plots, i.e. 1.06 hectares], as Chris Birkinshaw looks on.  From left to right: Adolphe Lehavana, Chris Birkinshaw (standing), Rico Andrianjaka, Patrick Ranirison, and Mihanta Andriambelo. Other members of Team One not shown: Reza Ludovic and me.  [NOTE: A real pleasure to work with these folks].

No Cutting, No Goats, No Fires

Sign on one of the trees along the road inside the Oronjia Forest protected area. The tree with the orange, papery bark is Delonix velutina, an important local species used to make canoes; the species is classified as "Endangered" on the IUCN Red List. I saw tree felling and I saw a lot of goats in the reserve, but no fires. [NOTE: Some interesting strategies are being implemented to get the goats out. Only a few families have goats, but their impact on the forest affects everyone. Stay tuned].

Flying In to Antananarivo

Flying in to the capital city of Antananarivo, or "Tana", after the workshop (see Oronjia Forest and More Oronjia). Beautiful colors as the sun goes down, but not much green. Mega-diversity country with a rapidly dwindling forest base. I was told that the great majority of the 2.1 million people in Antanarivo still cook with charcoal. Sigh. 

More Oronjia

This is what the dry deciduous forest looks like where we did the fieldwork for the commuity forestry workshop that I just taught with Chris Birkinshaw (see Oronjia Forest). Mostly short, secondary forest growing back after extensive charcoaling. More of a thicket, than a forest, actually.  As is shown below, the setting is fabulous, and there was always a cool breeze blowing in off the ocean.

Running transects through this stuff, however, was tedious at best. Image below shows Reza Ludovic pulling the transect rope to lay out a plot. Yes, he is crawling. Fieldwork was so hard – that it was funny. All the participants did a marvelous job, and we ran over two kilometers of line through this "forest" (thx, everybody, for your stamina and good spirits).   

Taco Truck

There's a taco truck parked outside of the back door of my office at NYBG. Probably part of the new Frida Kahlo exhibit. New addition to the somewhat pedestrian back-door environment of the Harding Lab. [NOTE: Wonder how many other tropical ecologists have a taco truck parked outside of their office]? 

Calamus hukaungensis

Here I am in 2005, walking across a completely denuded landscape next to a gold mine (see Worth A Thousand Words) in the Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve (see Hukaung Valley Rattan Survey – and numerous other posts) holding a bunch of spiny stems of a new rattan species, Calamus hukaungensis A.J. Hend. Lot that I like about this image, in addition to the new species: the orange collecting gloves (I still have these), the villager in the background, the morning fog, the desolation, and my green "Hukaung Valley Rattan Survey" baseball cap (which I also still have). 

A close-up of C. hukaungensis is shown below. The bristly ocrea and slender, sparse spines give it away. Click here for the original species description (Taiwanea 52(2):152-158, 2007). Nice job, Andrew. [NOTE: I think U Tun Shaung took the top photo (thx, Tun Shaung)].

Edible Plants in Orchard

List of the 43 edible plant species planted in one of the demonstration orchards at the Kandawgyi Botanical Garden in Pyin Oo Lwin (see Kandawgyi). With Burmese name, common name, botanical name, and plant family. And, of course, we went through and tried to find each one. [NOTE: Full disclosure, we had trouble locating all 10 of the Citrus species].

Oronjia Forest

Off next week to northern Madagascar to give a five-day workshop on sustainable forest use by communities. Fieldwork will concentrate on the dry decidous forests of the new Oronjia protected area (inside red circle). The workshop is being organized in collaboration with the Missouri Botanical Garden (thx, Chris), who has a long history of botanical exploration in Madagascar. Looking forward to the trip.

Going On Patrol

Early morning servicing of the motors at the Htamanthi Wildlife Sanctuary Forward Station (see How Tall Is That Teak Tree? and Sandstorm). Once the motors are working well, they are attached to long boats (see below) and filled with a team of rangers who will navigate into the backwaters of the Htamanthi Wildlife Sanctuary and spend two weeks walking through the forest looking for poachers or loggers or gold miners. They will be replaced by a similar team who works a different sector of the protected area. Two weeks hiking, two weeks off. These are some gnarly young men. 

Moon Over Uppatasanti

Forgot I had this image from the Uppatasanti Pagoda (ဥပ္ပါတသန္တိစေတီတော်) in Naypyidaw. We went back to the pagoda (see Uppatasanti Pagoda) after dinner to look at the relics (see Buddha's Tooth), and there was the moon in a cloudless, starry sky. [NOTE: Ready to go back, and am currently working on a proposal to fund continuing work in Myanmar. More later].