Training in Lak Sao

N18°11.664'
E104°58.346' 

Spent the first day in Lak Sao (see Management Planning II) giving a training workshop in the District Forestry office on the theory and application of sustainable rattan harvesting. Actually, I just provided "technical backstopping", and most of the lecturing was done in Lao by my WWF colleagues. The district forestry office, or DAFO, is an interesting venue.  As shown in the image above, most of the cavernous space is occupied by two regulation badminton courts; the conference room is confined to a little strip along the north wall. Also note the projection screen with the flip charts taped to it (we couldn't get the projector to work) and the beer advertisements adorning the walls.

Bows of gratitude to Mr. Bansa, shown below, for doing most of the lecturing during the workshop. Key data to note on the chart are the red 26.22 and 30.98 at the lower right.  This is the number of commericial rattan canes/hectare that can be harvested each year from the 5 meter and the 6+ meter size classes, respectively.

Most of the flip charts and the spreadsheet manipulations were done by Mr. Bounchanh, shown below discussing the relationship between stock and yield. He was definitely the numbers guy during this whole thing, and his contribution was invaluable (thx, Bounchanh). 

[NOTE: I have decided to start georeferencing the images in these posts when I have the coordinates. Don't know why anyone would ever be interested in these, but, if nothing else, it shows that I had a GPS with me at the time - and turned it on].  

Management Planning

Spent a large part of the last two days in this room talking about work plans, logframes, inventory protocols, growth data, and sustainable harvest levels with Thibault Ledecq, Regional Manager of the WWF Rattan Project (shown above), and the project managers from Cambodia and Vietnam. We need to produce 3,000 tons of sustainably harvested rattan from project villages in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. For IKEA. Over the next three years. This will be fun. [NOTE: Those are my rattan size-class histogram doodles shown on the whiteboard in the background].