….

Decided to look in on Environment Support Group as they are opening their new office very close to where I live. I like doing voluntary work but withing walking/cycling distance of home.

There was a fair-sized crowd to hear Dr Robert John Chandran, who talked about the species diversity of trees in tropical rain forests and their possible causes and effects. After a while, the discussion (and the mathematical models) got wayyyy too technical for me (and for the rest of the audience, too,once or twice!) . I gathered that there are several theories about how so many different species of trees/plants can share very small areas of land in some tropical areas, and extensive sampling of trees, and nutrient minerals, are being done to test these theories. One of the areas, indeed one of the lowest in terms of different species, is the Mudumalai area; the extremely diverse areas where research has been going on for 15 years are in Barro Colorado Island in Panama, and Yasooni, in Ecuador. Both these places have an incredible no. of species in a small area selected for research. Research involves going to the site EVERY WEEK for the past 15 years! That is really sustained, intense data collection.

Alas….the lecture was supposed to be from 5 pm to 6.30 pm and I had budgeted until 7pm… at 7.30 pm, I finally decided that I had to leave. To be fair, though, the inauguration took a while.

We need to budget time for meetings better; I wish they had put it at “Inauguration 5 pm to 6 pm, 6.30 pm, lecture by.. Dr Robert,” etc. I would have planned my time properly…oh well, I did appreciate SOME of the lecture…

Will be contacting ESG again shortly and see if I have any mutual areas of interest, and I can contribute something by volunteering there; they seem plentifully staffed though, with two young women with small babies coming back to the workforce (they were asked to inaugurate the new office by lighting lamps, a nice touch I thought.)