With an eye to the future, our fieldwork in French Polynesia ended last week with project lead Yadvinder Malhi joining us for a whirlwind tour of Moorea and Tetiaroa.
Tag Archives: fieldwork
Sharing science
One of the best things about studying forests is that our research subjects (the trees!) are easy for other people to work with too.
The thousand trees of Tetiaroa
One thousand tree tags later (well it was actually 1003, but who’s counting?!) and our forest monitoring on Tetiaroa is complete. So far we’ve used up 100 metres of pink flagging tape, 56 PVC pipes and eight litres of paint to mark the trees… as well as two bottles of mosquito repellent.
This is not a holiday…
To borrow Rob Whittaker’s favourite saying on Oxford Geography field trips – “this is not a holiday”… despite what it looks like!
But it’s all just coconuts, isn’t it?!
We are regularly asked – ‘Why are you studying forests on Tetiaroa? It’s just all coconuts trees isn’t it?’, and it’s easy to understand why people are surprised!
Crabs & coconuts… the forests of Tetiaroa
So ends our first week monitoring forests on the stunning atoll of Tetiaroa, 3 hours boat ride from Tahiti. Hosted by the Tetiaroa Society, Heipoe and I are living and working with the Tetiaroa Society rangers, guides and other staff of The Brando hotel on Onetahi, the only inhabited motu (islet) on the atoll.
‘ia ora na!
When you stop and listen, there’s a constant rumbling around Moorea’s coastline – it’s where the ocean waves are crashing against the reef on the edge of the shallow lagoon.
Dr Emma J McIntosh 