Note from the CoEB Director:
This quarter was busy for CoEB! I traveled to Belgium with colleague Prof Elias Bizuru to visit
biodiversity collections and explore data sharing with Meise Botanic Garden, Africa Museum in
Tervuren, Royal Belgian Inst of Natural Sciences, and Senckenberg Biodiversity Inst in Frankfurt,
Germany. We aspire to one day have the resources to host collections managed and displayed
in the ways we saw while on this visit. Partnerships are key to achieving this. We welcomed PhD
student and research affiliate from Lancaster University, UK Matt Hanley studying Collective
resource management for peace: How do transboundary environmental conservation practices
expose synergies for peace and pressures towards further integration in a regional area?
In May we hosted visiting researchers Dr. Joern Fischer and Marina Frietsch from
Social-Ecological Systems Inst at Leuphana Universitaet Lueneburg, Germany to discuss
research collaboration on ecosystem restoration, a critical issue in Rwanda where much
restoration is being done and assessments of ecosystem functioning, the role of biodiversity and
native species, and services being delivered to support people’s livelihoods are needed. We
had visiting researchers from UK, USA and Norway who launched a project on effects of
lightning on tropical forest dynamics. And we hosted Hilary McBean of Planet Birdsong; I went
with her and Claver Ntoyinkama in Nyungwe NP recording bird sounds, and to see many
endemic birds! And finally we hosted visiting researchers from Univ of California (UCLA and
UCSC), partners on a project funded by National Geographic Society to apply eDNA to
reconstruct mammal assemblages in Akagera National Park and build research capacity in
eDNA techniques. It was a pleasure hosting Drs. Brenda Larison, Rachell Meyer, and Chloé
Orland for the start of a long term collaboration. Enjoy this issue!
Beth Kaplin, Director of CoEB
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