One more day of working for Forest Restoration Research Unit
and on Saturday I will be departing Chiang Mai. To say these past 10 weeks were
fast would be an understatement. It feels like just yesterday I was starting my
first day here at FORRU attending an educational event for American college
students on the importance of forest restoration. Now, I’m getting ready to
give my final presentation on my time spent here the past 7 weeks. Time flew
by!! I’m very grateful for my time spent working for this amazing team and
organization. As I am preparing my presentation, I am looking back at all the
time spent with FORRU and how fortunate I am to have an eventful and unique job
this summer. My days with FORRU were spent either in the office doing a variety
of tasks, in the field doing laborious jobs and directly working to restore the
forests, or attending events to education people of different age groups on the
importance of forest restoration.
I’ve definitely increased my knowledge in the
world of environmental sustainability this summer!
My final days working for FORRU were spent finishing up the
individual tasks I was assigned, which was working with a professor on her
specific project and updating the website, and also traveling to Tham Pha Thai
National Park (again) to follow up from our tree planting day a few weeks ago.
On Tuesday night we traveled to Tham Pha Thai where we slept over, again, in a
log cabin to prepare for our all day event on Wednesday. Although my room in
the cabin was crawling with spiders, Common House Geckos, and many ants, it
still turned out to be a cool experience. On Wednesday morning we woke up and
traveled to the planting site (again, it was an adventurous ride). When we
arrived at the plot, we were divided into teams of two. Each team had the task
of measuring 500 trees that day. We were provided with a measuring stick and a
caliper and had to record the height, thickness of the base of the tree, length
of the trees crown, and record how healthy the tree looks to be. This was a
very tedious task, but I also recognize how important it is. We do this to
record the tree growth and see how much it has changed over time. This also
made me realize how much background work is put into planting thousands of
trees in the forest.
My last day interning for FORRU will be spent at the Chiang
Mai University Nature Center attending an event on forest restoration. I will
be sitting in informational sessions and also selling FORRU merchandise.
Although I am looking forward to getting back to Michigan and heading back to
Michigan State University for my senior year, I can’t help but be nostalgia for
my time spent working for FORRU and living in Chiang Mai. It was an amazing
experience and I am so thankful I was able to work here this summer. Not only
did it enhance my knowledge of forest restoration, but I was able to see so
much of Thailand and meet really great people along the way. I was able to
visit many cool places that I otherwise would not have known existed if it
wasn’t for working with FORRU. I also really appreciate that I was able to gain
so much hands on experience, rather than just sitting in an office all day.
Finally, FORRU provided me with awesome co-workers, which I have covered in my
past blog posts. I am sad my summer in Thailand has come to an end but grateful
for the experience and have memories that will last a lifetime!
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