Back in Phnom Penh

Arrived to Cambodia this afternoon. Will be here about a week. Training workshop with WWF rattan team and then the much-awaited book launch on Thursday. Should have a bit of free time tomorrow to visit some favorite spots, e.g. Silver Pagoda, the Royal Palace and the National Museum. [NOTE: I can't wait to see what a book launch is].

Training Workshop: Day II

Bounchanh Mekaloun from the Forestry Science Research Center explains some of the finer points of forest inventory design in the WWF conference room. I love the mix of technical forestry jargon and Lao script on the slide. [NOTE: Off to Cambodia tomorrow morning].

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].