Training

As part of the project “Monitoring protected areas in Peru to Increase forest resilience to climate change (MonANPerú)” Dr Karina Banda and Dr Martin Sullivan led a highly successful training course to analyse the dynamics and ecological changes in Peruvian tropical forests.

The course was attended by 20 people, including students, researchers and specialists from the Peruvian Protected Areas Authority (SERNANP). Participants learned how to use ForestPlots.net as a tool for forest data management and analysis and how to calculate and interpret the parameters of biomass and tree mortality rate, using the BiomasaFP package in the programming language R. The participants explored a range of issues including the impact of El Niño event in 2016 on the dynamics and structure of the forest, and the contributions of castaña (Brazil nut; Bertholettia excelsa) trees to the carbon stocks of the Tambopata National Reserve.

Georgia Pickavance (University of Leeds, UK) also led a 2 day workshop as part of  the MonANPeru project 1 year meeting ‘El progreso y los retos’. The workshop focussed on the use of ForestPlots.net as a data management tool for the MonANPeru project. The workshop had two halves: one for completely new users, and another for the previous year’s participants to further develop their data management skills specific to the project. 12 participants attended the mini course, from project partners IIAP, JBM, La Molina University and the Peru National Park Service SERNANP. Topics covered included:

Georgia Pickavance (University of Leeds, UK) led a workshop which formed part of the initial meeting for new project MonANPeru (Monitoreo de areas naturales protegidas en el Peru para incrementar la resiliencia de los bosques ante el cambio climatico) organised by Tim Baker (University of Leeds, UK) and Euridice Honorio (IIAP, Peru). The 5 day course (23 November – 2nd December) took place in Iquitos, Peru, eitherside of fieldwork in Allpahuayo Mishana National reserve where Abel Monteagudo-Mendoza (JBM, Peru) and Gerardo Flores (IIAP ProBosques, Peru) also led a training session in RAINFOR protocol field techniques. 8 participants from Peru attended the workshop, representing the 2 field teams that would be collecting the project data: Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonia Peruana (IIAP) y Jardin Botanico de Missouri (JBM). Topics covered included: 

Gabriela Lopez-Gonzalez (School of Geography, University of Leeds, UK) coordinated the scientific content and was the principal tutor in a workshop organized by Flavia Costa (INPA / PPBio, Brazil). The 5-day course (25^th to 29th of April 2016) entitled “PPBio /RAINFOR: Workshop de gerenciamento e análise de dados de vegetação” took place in Manaus, Brazil.  21 participants from Brazil attended and took part in the course, in which they learned how to use ForestPlots.net as a tool for forest data management, how to analyse biomass, dynamics and diversity information with the RAINFOR developed R Package, and shared best practice for analysis and data use.  Please visit the RAINFOR Facebook Group page (RAINFOR.project) to see some photos from the event.

The Amazon Forest Inventory Network (RAINFOR) joint with the Brazilian Program for Biodiversity Research (PPBio) and Center for Integrated Studies of Biodiversity in the Amazon (CENBAM) promoted the course “Herborization techniques, identification of tree species and vegetation structure”. The 7-day course (6^th to 13^th of July 2015) took place at km 100 of BR-319, Manaquiri a rural community in Carreiro Castanho – Amazonas. 12 participants from 5 communities along the BR 319: Careiro, Castanho, Araca, Puru-Puru and Manaquiri attended and took part in the course, in which they learned: how to collect botanical material, herborization and identification of woody angiosperms, mapping trees using a system of x and y coordinates, and standard protocols for diameter measurements and heights according to the protocols used by RAINFOR / PPBio to measure and monitor vegetation structure and biomass.

The course was conducted by Marcos Silveira (RAINFOR / PPBio / CENBAM / UFAC), Fernanda Coelho de Souza (RAINFOR / PPBio / CENBAM), Thaiane Sousa (PPBio / INPA) and Adriane Esquivel Muelbert (RAINFOR). The training provided an opportunity to involve local participants, with sharing protocols and data collection techniques. Moreover, it provided a unique opportunity to prepare teams and identify key leaders who will be involved in collecting and monitoring vegetation dynamics along the federal road connecting Manaus (AM) to Porto Velho (RO).

Gabriela Lopez-Gonzalez and Joey Talbot (School of Geography, University of Leeds, UK) coordinated the scientific content and were the principal tutors in a workshop organized by Abel Monteagudo and Rocio Rojas (Jardin Botanico del Missouri, Peru). The 5-day course (25^th to 29th of August 2014) entitled RAINFOR: Estudiando la Diversidad y Biomasa Forestal en el Oeste de la Amazonía – “Manejo y análisis de datos ecológicos con Forestplots.net” took place in Cusco, Peru. Nearly 30 participants from Peru, Bolivia and Brazil attended and took part in the course, in which they learned how to use ForestPlots.net as a tool for forest data management and how to analyse biomass, dynamics and diversity information. Please visit the RAINFOR Facebook Group page (RAINFOR.project) to see some photos from the event.

Ted Feldpausch (Univ Leeds, UK), Carlos Quesada (INPA, Brasil), Marcos Silveira (UFAC, Brasil), Chris Doughty (Oxford, UK), Flavia Costa (PPBio, INPA, Brasil) and Cleber Salimon (UFAC) led in June 2011, a RAINFOR-Moore sponsored workshop in Rio Branco, Acre, Brasil. The workshop, “Environmental science in Amazonia: RAINFOR as a catalyst to integrate projects under a regional network, analyse data and develop manuscripts” was hosted at the Escola da Floresta, and taught methods in data analysis and manuscript development. The 1-week workshop brought together 26 RAINFOR students, field technicians and collaborators from Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia and six instructors from Brazil and the UK and provided an opportunity to learn new techniques, meet RAINFOR collaborates from other regions, and share ideas and results. Each student presented his/her results during the workshop and developed an outline and preliminary analysis for a manuscript. Foster Brown provided a mid-week guest lecture. Many thanks go to Marcos Silveira and students from his laboratory who provided excellent support in organising the workshop and hosted a warm welcome dinner to the students and professors at a local ranch.

In 2009, RAINFOR members supported the Peruvian Amazon Research Institute (IIAP) in Iquitos, Peru for training people interested in the carbon cycle of Amazonian forests. Two workshops were organized “Statistical Analysis to support the design of carbon inventories” (15 – 17 May 2009) and “Integrated measurements of carbon fluxes in Amazonia” (23 – 31 August 2009) which emphasised basic concepts related to the measurement and analysis of the carbon cycle in tropical forests. The workshops were funded by the IIAP, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the ESPA program of NERC-ESRC-DfID. The links to the materials presented in the workshops are at: https://www.gob.pe/iiap.

23 participants from across Latin America and Europe attended the ‘Los Amigos Forest Ecology Training’ workshop (5 – 11 August 2008) for young scientists in using tree plots for assessing and monitoring the structure and function of tropical forests. The workshop was organized by the RAINFOR project with support from the Moore Foundation, and took place at the Los Amigos Research Centre and Conservation Concession (CICRA), Madre de Dios, Peru. The excellent facilities of this fantastic study site, a wildlife-rich reserve in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon and located at the southern end of the continuous western Amazon forest that stretches as far north as Colombia and Venezuela, helped make it a success. Participants were trained in standard international techniques for assessing forest structure and dynamics (wood density, stand biomass, tree and liana growth rates, and modes of mortality) and carbon cycling (production of litter and woody debris, necromass, root biomass, and soil respiration). The emphasis was on field techniques, supplemented by short lectures, with teaching provided by staff from Brazil, Peru, the UK, the US, and the Netherlands.