Team Snails: Valentino Orhaitil

The snail group in Hila'an.

Natural resource managers and some students across the Micronesia region were invited to attend a 2 and a half week course on Forest Ecology in Guam and Saipan conducted by University of Guam and Iowa State University. The purpose of the Course was to provide training for some of the natural resources people around Micronesian region. The course is part of USFS (Forest Service), tailored for the forestry professional work. There were 15 total participants from across Micronesia. 

The course consisted of 17-days in session, where students were learning different approaches in recognizing and recalling the major impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems. The course consisted of research and management of pacific island forests in a changing climate. This course will be extremely helpful for the natural resource managers in the whole Micronesia region. While the Course tailored to forestry program efforts, the information will be applicable to most, if not all, novices to forestry service program. The facilitators presented the information through slides, and had groups work together to review questions to give us practice, test understanding and practice hands-on data analysis.