Last year Laura was working together with me in Indonesia for her MSc. Now she already harvested a mega-seagrass-experiment for her own Phd. research. After receiving al lot of positive sms from Laura, when I was in Indonesia, I was looking forward visiting her experiment in Viane. Wouter also showed us his research on seagrass transplantation in Roelshoek. Eric Visser, Eelke Jongejans (both from RU’s Plant Ecology Department), Marieke and Leon were also invited to brainstorm over the driving forces behind succesful recolonisation after seagrass transplantation. The growth-season is very short from spring to early autumn but Zostera noltii growth rates are almost comparable, nevertheless seagrasses are still declining in the Netherlands. It is a pity that on the sites were seagrass grows most successful, dikes have to be enforced and seagrass have to give way.
Derawan did not changed a lot since I left 10 months ago. This time Wawan and me came for only a few weeks to do 3 experiments on Derawan Island and to go to the other important Green turtle foraging grounds on Maratua (40km from Derawan) and Pulau Panjang (8 km from D). What did we do?
Terimah kasih Wawan for some of the pictures!
In short: At Derawan island the turtles were still grazing the seagrass by digging out complete Read the rest of this entry »
And now a horror story about infections and dangerous animals, which combination was still lacking on this blog. Halfway my experiments I got stung by a stingray when I walked to the experimental site (knee-deep water). I felt something very sharp and hard stinging 5 cm into my feet, 3 cm under my ankle, resulting in a lot of blood. I wore booties but it stung right through the neoprene and rubber. At first I kept thinking it was a sharp shell or glass and not a stingray because I did not notice any pain from poison at first and I expected to feel something moving if it was a stingray.
I had some visions about me unable to come back to the field so we continued and harvested the experiment for 2 hours. Already halfway I got some suspicion that I maybe was a stingray, I was in a lot of pain and an hour later I was experiencing the most pain ever. Looking at the 400m distance that I have to walk back to the shore made me feel hopeless. The pain was up to my knee. Off course I know that the stingrays are there and I always walk with sliding movements, which scarred them away 300 times before when I walked in the same area but I was just unlucky this time.
If you arrive on Derawan, especially with low tide, you will notice one thing immediately: GARBAGE. It’s everywhere! People living next to the shore throw everything in the water/on the beach; Garbage, toilet contents, everything. So one day when we were on our way to Maratua but when we had to return due to dangerous high waves (July and August is wave season / widow season) and we had the rest of the day off, we decided: let’s clean the area around our house!
Some kids were interested in what Wawan, Ibu Heldi, Ade (her son) and I were doing, and joined us. 5 hours later we gathered 3 m3 of garbage, consisting of 120 batteries (around 1 house only!!!), ±30 kg glass, ±10kg metal and a lot of plastic (even ½ fibre boat). The problem was where to leave this. Because they only have a place behind the football field were they gather and burn al the garbage. No waste sorting centre like you find in every Dutch city here, even not on the mainland cities! So the only thing what we could do Read the rest of this entry »
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