Graeme Hall: Non-swamp day

So today was our introduction to Graeme Hall and decide on a project day. We were meeting various government people, so were instructed to dress semi decently. First was Graeme Hall - a nature sanctuary owned by a Canadian. In this reserve there is the last remaining mangrove habitat, and we were told of a petition to make Graeme Hall a national park. The problem is a developer wants to put a water park right next door to Graeme Hall, and so some people got together to form an NGO designated to make Graeme Hall a national park. Due to the political implications and complications, our project ended up being very information based as opposed to actually making a recommendation. However, I do think we gathered some interesting information through this project.

We also went to the Ministry of Agriculture, where the entomology sector showed how they were using bioloigcal methods to try and control crop pests. It was very interesting, and alternatives to pesticides are almost always a good thing.

Then it was brainstorm time to try and find a project. Dr. Buddle acted as our moderator, and we actually ended up with five sub projects. One group would do research on biodiversity and its importance and the effects of conservation programs in other countries. Three groups looked at fauna in Graeme Hall, collecting and identifying species, and the last group worked with molecular biological techniques to be able to process and add to the DNA barcoding initiative. The three fauna groups were fish, lepidoptera and odonata (butterflies, dragonflies, and damselflies), and terrestrial arthropods.

To finish is an example of our now superb pinning skills which will be put to good us in this project! The bug in the top right was a carpenter bee. It was found dead - can you imagine that thing actually flying around?!