March Post – The Hitch-hikers Guide to Urban Forestry

This month we had the presence of Tim Hall who graduated in Forestry at Bangor University to talk about Urban Forestry. To be honest, I have never thought about who takes care and manage urban forests. I just thought that trees were there because they grown there because they were. I knew that Urban Forestry exists, what I didn’t know is that it was not about only planting trees in the streets, gardens and squares, creating green areas for recreation and protection of particular green areas. In this talk, I learned that urban forestry has also to achieve ornamental purposes, micro climate improvement, decrease pollution, and others.

Tim told us that Urban Forestry has a vital importance, mainly in the biggest centres. The benefits provided by it are usually classified as ecological, economic and social benefits.

Ecological benefits are related to microclimate improvement. With a larger green area, the temperature is lower, avoiding the heat islands effect that are formed quickly in large cities. Usually, this effect is formed by the huge amount of concrete, a lack of green areas and by the pollution level (mostly caused by vehicles that circulates in the cities).   The trees and other plants intersect, reflects, absorb and transmit solar radiation, improving air temperature and quality. This reduces energy use as well. Trees also increase wind speed and atmosphere humidity, refreshing the cities.  Trees in urban environment also have a considerable potential of removing pollutant  gas particles in the atmosphere. Some trees can filter polluting chemicals such as sulfur dioxide, ozone and fluor. Other quality that can be attributed to trees is that they can decrease the level of noise found in big cities caused by traffic that psychologically and physically affects people.

 

The economics and social effects refer to the promotion of the cities. Being tourist attraction when some streets, neighbourhoods or small cities can be known by the trees they have. Also there is  a property valuation near leafy streets. The use of energy is reduced also because of the shadows of the trees. To these attributes, is associated social contributions, that can be defined as human physical and mental health, recreation options and an increase of the value of a property.

An important benefit Ii think it is important to highlight is the opportunity of environmental education for the population: people can learn about the environment by seen the clear difference between forested areas and built-up areas. I can say this by myself because I live in the centre of my city in Brazil with lot of forested area in the neighbourhood which makes me feel better and more concious about the nature in some way… 🙂

 

Corredor da Vitória, Salvador, Brazil – My neighbourhood

 

As always, I made some research about urban forestry in Brazil. I found out that São Paulo, the largest city in Brazil, has 968,3 km² of forestry area (about 9 times bigger than the territorial area of Paris), without counting the metropolitan region (2.209 km² of urban area – almost two times the territorial area of New York). So, the city presents a lot of programs of urban forestry like Pomar Project, which has the initiative of planting flowers and fruit trees on the Pinheiros River bank aiming make transforms them in a garden with 14km of extension with native species.

It is important to remember that in order that urban forestry fulfil its hole it is necessary an investment, as well as any other public service. And by high investment destined to urban forestry, the trees a public property. While most of the public goods depreciates over time, the value of the trees increase since the of planting until their maturity.

 

December Workshop: Careers Cafe

On this workshop we were privileged with the presence of five ex-Bangor students presenting what happened on their careers since they left the University.

The first to speak was Dr Ross Piper, a Zoologist who now is author and TV presenter. He first graduate in Bangor University and went on to a PhD in insect ecology at Leeds University. Like me, Ross was not sure about what to do after graduating. The only thing he knew was his passion for Zoology (which I thought very clear, by listening to this talk). I particularly liked his talk most because he could transmit us the idea that if we have an interest on something, we have to pursued whatever it takes. After he aring his talk, I got curious and interesting on watching him in Wild Burma Natures Lost Kingdom. I really liked, even though I am not a Zoology student, and I don’t have interesting on following the academic career, because inspires me seeing people who really loves their jobs and do it with passion and enthusiasm. In this link you can see an interesting video of Ross presenting Wild Burma: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE_JbmsSU8w

Ross Piper fillming in Burma. (thecomet.net)

 

After we heard Cherry Shacklady who is now a head of Biology in Friars School. Cherry studied Molecular Biology at Bangor and realised she wanted to be a teacher after helping students. We could see, as long as she described her career that we need to have enthusiasmand do researches about the job we intent to apply.

We next heard about Nia Jones who graduated in Zoology with marine biology in 2003 and now works as a marine conservation officer at the North Wales Wild Life Trust. Likely most of the students who are graduating, she didn’t know what to do so she went on a master degree in Ecology in which she get involved in volunteer work. I found her talk quite interesting because I really want to volunteer this year, during my studies abroad, because I do believe by volunteering we not only help on the work itself but we also learn how to deal with people, sense of responsibility, and care for the others. Besides that, at the level of recognition, I think that volunteering is much more well seen when compared to paid jobs while graduating.  Nia also advised us to give our best in any work, volunteering or not.

Naomi Willis graduated in Chemistry at Bangor University and went on to a PhD in Biology. Now she works as a healthy care scientist at Welsh Water. In her talk, she told us about the importance of getting into a graduate scheme to grow as professional.

Last to speak was Imogen German who graduated in Biology in 2007. In all the talks, I identified myself more with hers. More because of, like me, I could see that she likes to travel and learn from different countries. Now she is teaching at the Uni and doing a PhD. Her advise for us was to not lose enthusiasm while looking for job and build a career.

I found this workshop really interesting because one of the best ways to learn is to listen to advises given from people who have more experience than us. Also, I could learn more about the opportunities that students have here in the UK which is quite different from the opportunities we have in Brazil. I am looking forward to put in practise what I am learning here.

November Workshop: Interview Skils

In November happened the first of a series of workshops offered in the module. I found it very interesting, first of all because it was very interactive as the class were divided into groups of 4 people. Second, because I could simulate how I would act on a job interview (in English!).

The questions were general and quite expected for a job interview, as we saw on previous lectures. Here are some similar examples:

Are you the best person for this job?

Describe a difficult experience at work and how you handled it.

Do you prefer to work alone or on a team?

How do you handle pressure?

How would you describe yourself?

One thing about these questions that is important to point is that even though we all know they can be asked, in the interview seems that the answers run away. We stay nervous, anxious and begin to sweat. Also funny because we were all simulating.

Job Interview

As all the four participants of the group were the interviewer and the interviewee, we all could point the mistakes we thought our colleagues were making and have a feedback of our mistakes as well. Another interesting thing I have observed is that most of the mistakes I noticed on my colleagues answers, like nervousness, anxiety and agitation, I presented as well. This made me think that I will have to prepare myself more the next time I face a job interview (even when simulating one).

After this part, we received a test to see what kind of member we would be in a team. My results showed that I am a Company worker, followed by a Shaper.

And, to finish the workshop, the last step was to organize emails into an order of importance.

I really found this workshop very interesting and useful, and for sure I will use what I’ve learned there to find I job in the near future!