week nine

It is rather surreal coming home; the comfort, safety, clean water, small things we normally take for granted now feel like such luxury.
 
Its satisfying too, knowing that we have completed what we set out to do. The expedition was an enormous success and we have heaps of interesting and valuable information; butterfly data, logging data, data on canopy openness, temperature and humidity, all which will help us understand the impacts of logging on butterflies and forest microclimate.
 
I start my MRes in a couple of weeks and will spend the next year analysing our findings and communicating our results to the scientific community, GreenGold Forestry Group and the public. I have every hope that this project will inspire the civic and scientific community, help inform sustainable forest management strategy and provide a foundation for future research in our study area…this is just the beginning!
 
Personally, if I can communicate the serenity I felt staring in wonder up at a 150ft giant, spying the ecosystems hidden between its limbs and at the end of its far-flung branches, then I have achieved something. If I can propagate the associated disappointment, sadness and frustration I feel that anthropogenic actions threaten this unique forest ecosystem, perhaps more people will try to break our habit of overexploiting nature. I wonder how many more generations will live in a world with clean air, towering trees and beautiful butterflies, when our demand for energy and resources is so high that we destroy the rainforest at an annual rate of 18 million acres? When eventually the lungs of our planet become so thirsty they cannot breathe – what then? And though this concern fires my enthusiasm to take action within my own capacity, I can’t prevent the pessimistic and underlying question, will our efforts ever be enough?
 
Through scientifically-informed forest management and collaborative conservation action, I have every faith they can. The combined support and efforts of people with a heart for nature, the influence of inspirational figure heads and willingness of organisations such as GreenGold Forestry Group to adapt their enterprise to minimise ecosystem damage and biodiversity loss, gives me hope for the future. A future, not for our planet, since our behaviour will not stop it turning, but to safeguard the kind of world we want to live in. 

​Tish