10 day with the QLF fellowship

It is our second week with the QLF fellowship program in the North Eastern region of the United States of America and it has been a true learning experience and fun. We have met with gorgeous people in different institutions in the first week - The fishermen Wife's association as well as the National Marine Fisheries Services and many others targeting fisheries management. That week was very interesting as we obviously appreciated the different point of views coming from Government, NGO's as well as the local fishing communities.

As Felicia truly mentioned the visit at the Bio Diversity Research Institute was slightly different in the sense of its objectives (more related to bird monitoring) but indeed a great experience in the bird tagging activities we were engaged in the River Point Area. Despite their interest in Birds their was even a more interesting and important issue brought up in decisions with David Buck. The research program that focuses in Mercury concentrations in the bird species, but of interest for us in the Fish species that we consume. David was even generous in proposing future collaboration in this type of research for our target fish species in Belize.

Well we are a little further North this week in Maine and we have been in Acadia National Park two days, yesterday despite the extreme fog we had a wonderful talk by Park Ranger (Virginia) about the entire history of Acadia. We learnt much of how it was established a national park and the different heroes involved in what it is now. Most important and one that I noted was that she was very keen about the protection of the natural vegetation's in the park -she was very clear in enhancing best practices.

Never the less today we met with the superintendent of the ANP - Sheridan Steele. He gave us a brief presentation of the park and in discussions we were a bit concern about the carbon footprint/impacts to the natural resources because of the heavy vehicle transportation within the park. Well we learnt that initiatives has been established to reduce the carbon footprint in the area by promoting the use of their propane powered buses for transportation within the park. Another thing that was of great interest for my personal point of view was - assessments that indicate the low interaction of the younger generation with nature or rather the love for nature. I was amazed to know that they have prioritized the integration of youths in environmental projects to at least build a new generation of great leaders and nature lovers.

What an experience!!!!