Bonjour

Today was exciting to meet a whole team of people I have spent the last year communicating with using google translate. It was like I knew everyone and it felt so familiar being in the office but yet it was the first time. Almost like having constant déjà vu. This is the view from the house we stayed at just on the outskirts of town and had our morning tea before going to the office. This landscape is incredibly mountainous and rangers have a hard time traversing the landscape. It is physically challenging and nothing is as simple as it seems on a 2D map. Being a Man and Biosphere Reserve means communities are very much at the heart of everything that goes on and the landscape is such that humans and wildlife live in the same spaces. This comes with unique challenges for protected area management, that are intensified when people are so dependent on harvesting from the forest for daily survival. I learnt a lot today.