Comments

http://bsu0af.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/building-a-one-planet-future-by-stuart-bond-gift-manager-28-february-2014/comment-page-1/#comment-40

Sadly, I couldn’t make this seminar but by reading your blog I found in interesting and informative. I particularly like your comment at the end “the planet cannot be made perfect but it can be made better”. I feel like that comment is true and that everyone can make it better. Just one thing though… What is GMO?

http://bsue53.wordpress.com/2014/03/16/the-hitchhikers-guide-yo-urban-forestry/comment-page-1/#comment-10

Even though I didn’t go to this seminar, I have to agree with the comment above that I enjoyed reading your blog and with a sample layout I wanted to keep reading. I liked that the variety of picture broke up the text to keep the reader interested.
I have to agree that I haven’t given much thought either to the effects urban forestry even though I live in the city. However after reading your blog, I can say that I have thought about it more on the benefits of the wealth of wildlife surrounding and the benefits for the environment.

http://psuabd.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/understanding-adaptive-radiation-using-population-geonomics/comment-page-1/#comment-3

I found that your blog was well written and easy to read allowing the images and the table to break up the text. However, I felt that there should have been more. I wanted to read more on the species of cichlid in Lake Malawi and their breeding methods. Maybe, you could have included some related papers such as

–         http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bij.12105/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false

–         http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00005175

–         http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/29/1/195.short

 

http://ebbbsue19.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/280314-plant-conservation-in-uk.html?showComment=1399036487340#c8851431220153728023

This comment wouldn’t allow me to post it via my word press user name, for some unknown reason; therefore it has been name Anonymous.

I have to agree that the word plant sends me to the land of boring. Even though I went to this seminar, I feel that you have done the talk justice. You have made it easy to read and to understand with hyper link within the text to help the reader understand that bit more. Good job.

COURSE IMPACT ASSESSMENT

“How the Seminars have influenced my Career Plans“

At the start of the module, I thought that this module was going to be pointless as I already knew how to do an interview and I already had a CV. However, I was proven wrong since I didn’t know how to write a cover letter and didn’t have a clue of how to write a business plan or what it entails.

Over all I am very happy I took this module. The careers cafe was a good experience as I feel hearing about the career paths of others helps with my confidence that I can do the same. The take home message that I got was that even though you do a degree in a particular area doesn’t mean you have to keep your option closed.

I have to say that by doing the blogs encouraged me to go to the seminars. I went to a few more but I have blogged the ones that I thought that I could relate to my possible future career. The workshops have reinforced my confidence that I can interview well and have good pieces of writing.

The Business Plan

The final part of the bio-enterprise and employability module is gaining knowledge to write the process of a business plan from Chris Walker.

This led to an assignment which entailed explaining each element of a business plan and how knowledge of each element may help me in my future career. 

At first, I wondered how useful I would find this assignment, as I don’t think that I want to go into business. However, I now know and understand that every company involves business of some type; therefore I now can fully be grateful for the benefits that this course component can offer to me.

Hopefully my future plans become a reality, allowing me to be a research scientist of some description or an aquarist within the next few years. If this becomes a reality then I would be writing or assisting in writing proposals for research project asking for funding. I feel that the knowledge of how to write a business plan will be a vital and transferable skill, which I can apply to apply to almost any future employment.

Illegal hunting and the bush meat trade: an emerging crisis in African savannah – 26th March 2014

Peter Lindsey works for Panthera (http://www.panthera.org/ ). He moved from studying wild dogs to the issue of bush meat.

The forest biomass is highly important and the crisis has been recognized as it holds a significant component of the economies.

It is illegal and especially in Protected Areas. The commonest method used is wire snares (86.6% for studies). 

Dogs (64.3%)

Bow and arrows (50.0%)

The reason for this is that it is cheap and easy to produce, hard to detect in the bush and it is extremely effective however, it is wasteful has it is not selective on a particular species, therefore young and mothers are being caught. It also causes the animal to have a slow and painful death.

Less than 1400 animals are found rotted in wire snares over the last 5 years. If there is no control on the animal selection then species will eventually some species will end up dying out.

Illegal hunting occurs are on a continuum for the local trade of bush meat and to sell on to Paris and London.

The ecological impacts are significant impact on part species wild range; it is mainly the prey population that are affected.

100 – 150,000 wire snares of bush meat have been pulled up out of the bush since the project has started.

The factors that are most effected the bush meat trade are the fact that there under – funding of protected areas, inadequate anti pouching, weak penal, low priory and there is a poor relationship between the protected areas and the people that live in it.

I felt that this talk was very informative and I didn’t realise that the bush meat trade was such a huge issue and I’m shock to hear that the number of wire snares is that much and increasing and that YouTube has a how to make a wire snare. This proves that it is the most common method since the information is so easy to assess.

For more information

• http://www.bushmeat.org/bushmeat_and_wildlife_trade/what_is_the_bushmeat_crisis
• http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5699/1180.short
• http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118297469.ch10/summary