The Training. The first part of our Myanmar mission was to run a mangrove restoration training programme for a mix of victims; local villagers who were predominately rice farmers, generalist local NGO types, bemused of the UNDP (another sort of NGO but as organisations like UNDP / UNEP and IUCN have permanent flows of money, they live in a different world of comfy hotels, expenses actually paid, endless conferences in exotic locations and commissioning other groups to actually do the dirty work) and Myanmar forestry chaps. Perhaps 50 in all. Different levels of awareness of conservation issues, values, previous knowledge and interest.
Jim has had a lot of experience doing these workshops around south and southeast Asia. This would be his 14
th. But Myanmar was new for him as well as me. Normally one would do a recce of the location beforehand, engage a local NGO who would sort out local logistics, find a gaggle of translators and help with the admin. Groups would be smaller and not mixed. Myanmar was different and new as a training venue for both of us. We agonised about how much powerpoint to use (for pictures and illustrations, not huge screeds of verbiage). How much mapping could we use and would be understood? (Mapping is cultural – some places just don’t have an idea of a 2D representation of their 3D world.) Would there be (regulated!) electricity, a suitable venue, a wall to project up on to? Would there be any local mangroves to use for field trips and examples, because life from Google Earth looked pretty grim and barren.
Communications with Dr O, our FAO boss who lived in Myanmar, were very difficult as the government censors often brought all email to a halt while they read through email and attachments. The project had been delayed several times before. And a key member of the team (a colleague of Jim) dropped out with a few weeks to go. So it was a bit fraught trying to organise ourselves, be as prepared as possible and flexible. On top of this, presenting through translators brings down any work rate by 50% and much feedback is lost. You never know how the material is being translated, and for the translators it’s a shattering job.
However, having bouncy-castled our way ten hours north in some vintage vehicles, we were pleasantly surprised to find a large hall in Kyauk Phyu complete with a picture of Than Shwe the current Dictator/Lead General, rather village hall-like in feel, electricity which didn’t cut out once, a projector screen which the FAO had previously given to the local forestry dept and everything else we needed. So having had a rehearsal day with the translating team, San from the forestry department and Khin from FAO in Yangon, we had an amazing evening recce around some local, trashed mangroves and found what we needed for the field trips, close to town.
Those of you of a more pictorial bent might like to go to my Picasa public pages and see what KP’s river looks like. While there in the late afternoon, the light became more and more golden from the local people cooking on a million fires, and just wonderful for taking photos. People were busy floating huge rafts of bamboo down river, fixing boats, flaming bugs out of their boat timbers (local knowledge tip # 54, fill your boat with water first, before setting fire to the outside), moving nypa palm roof sections into town to sell, collecting firewood and fishing. Behind us, as we looked over the river, standing on a huge, hand-dug dyke, was a previous mangrove area, converted to rice paddy. Rice growing is a national obsession in Myanmar, but as it’s rain fed rather than irrigated, they only manage one meagre crop a year, and for the rest of the time the land is useless – on average a gaining a value of only $150pa/ha, a fraction of the ecosystem services mangroves provide for the same unit area. As a result, poor local people practice shifting rice agriculture, impounding vast areas of mangrove, waiting for the stuff to die off, and then farming the area for rice for a few years before moving on, leave a huge, desolate circle of useless, exhausted and slightly saline land, cut off from the tide, where nothing grows. Ironically, Myanmar has loads of gas. Great bubbles of it. Gas balls that my father would be proud of. But it is all exported to China and the people are left to chop down everything standing to cook with.
The next day we got up early to start the training at an appropriate time. Opening my door a waist-high Lesser Adjutant Stork accosted me, fixing me with its surprisingly blue, unflinching eyes. Tame, inquisitive, with straggly neck like a vulture, it pulled my flipflops off the step and tried to run off with them. Nesting material or starting a second hand shoe shop? For either, those shoes would not be my first choice. The next day it found a loop of wire we had in stock. Unfortunately it was just the wrong diameter to walk with, so with the loop in its beak, it would trip down the steps, getting tangled up in the wire.
We got the training hall and started to set up. Pleasingly, many of the attendees arrived early, as they did every day subsequently. While we were setting up, someone told us that the army top local brass wanted to attend and open the show. Desperately we scrambled around for appropriate chairs and gifts for them (cultural thing). And just as some formal wooden sofas arrived from our hotel, we found out that the mining minster was in town, and they wouldn’t be coming, after all.
The first day was ice breaking, finding out what all these people were thinking about, intro to what we wanted to teach etc and finishing with the first field trip. We were surprised by how willing they were to listen, do crazy exercises when we felt they were getting a bit sluggish, chat and so on. The field trip was to the area recced and described earlier. Split into two groups, Jim did the social impacts of what was going on in eyesight, and I did the more scientific / practical and much discussion. Then back on the amazing bus, with a catflap at the back, rattan and plastic window, inappropriate pole dancing pole in the middle to hold the roof up, and visible metal radial showing through the tyre tread, back to the hall to conclude the first day.
The rest of the training went really well. We covered some very basic biology, mangrove zonation, previous failures (ie the majority of mangrove projects), law, hydrology, transects, mapping blah blah blah. The second day we made them run a transect through some mangrove, noting species, soil, features, dbh etc. Having allowed them to draw the next day we were amazed how well they had done it and annotated their work.
At the end of the fourth day, we bought boxes of beer, and at their suggestion we went to a local beach with a lot of snacks for a small party, which they really enjoyed. Locals were bemused and underwhelmed by watching your bloganaught trying to extract a cork from a bottle of wine with pliers and a bottle opener. I wonder what the Burmese is for 'muppet'?
Always prepared, just not for a drinks party. More anon.
