Conference is over. I think it went ok. At least we've had lots of positive feedback on our presentation. Always hard to tell though if people are just being polite. But I actually think it did go well. Tomorrow I'm working on some data collection stuff with some of our staff here, and then Sat-Sun, I've booked myself into an all-inclusive. Got some super cheap prices in the internet. So I'm looking forward to just relaxing for a couple days. 

A sneak preview of our presentation at the ECHO conference this week. This is a map showing to of the important watersheds on the island of Hispanola, the Artibonite watershed and the Enriquillo watershed. The grey line in the center of the map is the Haitian/Dominican border and you can see in  the case of both watersheds that they are partly in both countries. This underscores the complicated nature of the ecological relationship between the two countries and how the people of this island are linked in multiple ways. In fact it is hard to find  a map like this and the few watershed maps out there tend to show these river systems essentially stopping at the border, as if nothing existed on the other side. But the reality is that people living in the border regions depend on each other regardless of nationality, often more than they rely on their fellow citizens in distant capitals.

From arrival at airport to my departure gate in 15 minutes. I'm pretty sure thats some kind of record. At the very least a personal best. Maybe i'll even start timing my check ins. l am fully aware that no one is going to care about that except for me.

And this is the canyon where those trees will be planted--either in or around. I'm pretty sure I've posted pictures of this before, but it's just one of those places where you feel compelled to take pictures. Kind of like Kilimanjaro. I swear every time I see that mountain I want to take my camera out.

We've started a new project to help protect a watershed area called Nyakazu. This is a priority area for the country since it has value both for it's biodiversity and for tourism. There's a spectacular canyon which I've talked about before where there is a residual native forest. A community nursery was recently started where local people  went and gathered tree seed from the forest and are trying to propagate them here. Below is one of the species, called Umuvyiro (still looking for the scientific name). This is one of the few times this has been tried and it's really an experiment to see what will grow and what will not. So I'm  very excited to see these leaves pushing through after 6 weeks in the ground. Makes me want to move here and just work on getting native trees to propagate. In a few months time these trees will be planted in and around the canyon area--the community (and our) first attempt at native tree propagation.

this is one of those moments when work doesn't feel like work. Sunday evening sitting on the beach. The band just finshed a pretty laidback version of Hotel California. Sorry i can't share that too

the recently painted mural at the hotel where i'm staying the next couple days. i think the artist has done a good job of capturing the look and feel of the Burundian countryside

breakfast on a travel day. todays journey is kilimanjaro-nairobi-bujumbura

It's the equivalent of spring here. Being 3 degrees south of the equator means the seasonal change is not as obvious, but still distinct. Lots of plants and trees flowering, birds of all kinds everywhere. This is a hanging plant in the hotel garden.

This is a classic agroforestry plot in Kilimanjaro Tanzania. A mixture of banana, avocado, some timber trees, and annual crops (at this moment, maize). There's also one sad, spindly looking coffee plant (sort of in the middle of the picture, slightly to the left of centre). The groups with whom we work here have done significant tree planting and recently I was able to do a quantitative analysis of whether all that tree planting has resulted in any measurable change or not. The graph below shows the change in vegetation--measured as an index called NDVI--over a 3 year period. What it shows is at locations where there are groups working to do tree planting, there has been an increase in vegetation over time. As you move away from the centre where the group is located, there is still a positive influence but less so with distance. At about 5 or 6 kilometres away from where these groups are located, the change in vegetation starts to become negative. This is shown in the green line. The yellow line shows what happens around a typical village in the rest of the same watershed. You can see that change at and around these villages is negative over the three years, and gets worse further away from the village.

the Nairobi airport. which frankly doesn't look

that much different since the last time i was here (when was that? i guess i should check my blog). You may remember there was a big fire here a few weeks back and there are definitely sections that are closed off for repair but things appear to be working more or less OK. In fact i got my transit ticket printed off faster than ever. So fast I thought maybe they'd made a mistake.

There is a subtle smokey aroma in the air