The second Biodiversity for Busy Managers workshop took participants on a field trip to provide an insight on how human activities impact on the environment from a landscape perspective. DAVE BAKEWELL reports.

Written by Dave Bakewell on 7 Mar 2011 with 0 comments. Be the first!

Participants of this MPOC-Wild Asia workshop represented a variety of plantation companies (oil palm and other biofuel crops), and consisted not only of planters but also executives from company headquarters, with a wide-ranging interest in policy, strategy and compliance issues, as well as the practicalities of biodiversity in plantation management.

As such, an important part of the workshop was convincing participants that biodiversity loss is a crucially important issue which affects everyone.

"Looking at biodiversity from a broader perspective was one of the most helpful things I got from the workshop," commented Foong Huey Yuan of KLK Bhd, "It will help me to train others at our various operation centres as to the importance and implementation of biodiversity conservation." "We need to learn from the past so that we do not repeat the mistakes made then in future generations," was how Lee Swee Yiu of Sime Darby Plantations put it.

A new feature of the workshop was a field visit, which followed the course of a river from mid-catchment to the sea. The aim was to encourage participants to look at the various human impacts on the environment from a landscape perspective, and in particular, to help them understand how management actions in one place have an impact in another.

"The field visit helped me to understand more clearly how changes in the state of biodiversity affect the 3Ps [people, profit and planet]. The discussions we had in the field also helped us translate theory into ideas for practical implementation which would have real impact," was the view of Sin Chuan Eng of KLK berhad.

Participants expressed appreciation for the positive learning environment of the workshop.

"Discussions were very open and course leaders very supportive. You could see how interested the participants were," was the observation of one participant. "Guidelines provided were very practical and clearly and well-presented," said Leu Cher Kiong of the J C Chang Group. "Discussions, presentations (with lots of interesting visuals) and activities led to an informal and interactive classroom setting," said Juanita Lourdes of MPOB.

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