Controversy in the North: completing the poker!!

Hi all!!

The topic of this post will be again travelling! :)

Last Christmas I could not stand any more my sedentary life in Spain, and I decided to travel again and visit an old master colleague in southern Sweden. Apart from visiting him, another reason to go there was the opportunity to discover one more of the Nordic countries: Denmark!! That way, and after my previous travels to Norway, Sweden & Finland, I completed the poker of Nordic countries!!! Now only Iceland is missing!!

Nyhaven area in Copenhagen (Denmark)

Copenhagen is a city that I always wanted to visit due to its bicycle urban culture, because of the massive utilization of these vehicles in people's everyday life. I was really eager to pedal on the extensive bicycle lanes that cover the entire city, to see all those Danish going by bike despite the wind, the rain, the fog, the snow, the adverse climatic conditions..., to see those super-cool bikes that they use to bring kids to school....yes, they even take kids to school with them!!

1) Bicycle culture; 2) Multifuctional bicycle "baths"; 3) In front of the Royal Palace

The excuse to write this time about the Nordic countries was, first, because I am absolutely in love with them, and second, because I have recently read an article in The Guardian that I found really interesting! (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/scandinavian-miracle-brutal-truth-denmark-norway-sweden?commentpage=1)

The article questions the image that we have about the Nordic system, habits, facts and all things in general, about considering all these countries supermodels in terms of democracy, organization, education, quality of life, etc.. The same author (Michael Booth) has been living in Denmark for more than 10 years now, and he admits to have contributed to the idolatry of all the wonders in Scandinavia, but now, he changed his mind and said ENOUGH!

His reaction made me really curious and I asked myself why? So I decided to buy his new book in which he presents a more detailed analysis of each one of the Nordic countries (The Almost Nearly Perfect People – The Truth About the Nordic Miracle), and he puts on the balance not only all the wonderful things that we heard about all these countries, but also the dark side of each one, and that we may not be as aware of.

I have not read it yet, but I can not wait to do it and see if my opinion of this region and its inhabitants changes. Be sure that I will let you know if that happens!

If you are interested in this very singular part of the World, and want to know more about it, I think this can be a really interesting book!

Cheers!!

Marc.

What about joining the beauty of nature with my favourite hobby? A different perspective of forestry

Hello everyone!!

The first thing that I would like to say is that this post has been waiting for a long time to be published. Maybe because I considered the previous ones more "urgent", maybe because I did not have the time to work on it, or maybe I was just not feeling in the mood to publish it...I do not know, but it does not matter! The important thing now is that I am really happy to explain something to you, for the first time, about my favourite hobby.
Yes, this post is not directly related with FORESTRY. Even though I hope one day this will allow me to make some money, and that I will be able to build my life based on it, what I really like to do (and what I need to do) when I want to disconnect from the everyday life and release some stress, is going MOUNTAIN-BIKING!!!

I have recently read a post in a friend's blog where she explains how she was able to combine forestry (yes, she is a Forest Engineer too), with one of her favourite hobbies (climbing), thanks to her Bachelor's thesis. I must admit that I was feeling a little bit jealous, and I kind of regretted my preference for spending too many hours just sitting inside an office sometimes. The combination of one of my favourite hobbies with my profession seemed something quite appealing, and why not, also clever when taking into account the internal equilibrium of a person. Therefore, what I do now is try to find some free time during the week to get out of the office and pedal a little bit...for instance, Wednesday morning. If your working time schedule allows you to do that, and your commitment with your tasks is not influenced, there should not be any problems!

But...coming back to this post and to mountain-biking!! The truth is that I have always thought that one of the biggest advantages of doing mountain-bike was its capability to "empty" your mind. Serioulsy!! Most of the time you end up thinking just about nothing!! What is more, you can also have access to very remote and singular places in a healthy way, while keeping you in permanent contact with nature and, of course, forests
Now, I would be really pleased to make you feel just a little bit of the passion that I have for this sport.

COME IN AND SEE!!:

I would like to start with a short reflection on what mountain-biking represents to me (and probably to other people). The text has been adapted from a friend's blog: "Triathlon, my lifestyle":

Mountain bike, my lifestyle

On Saturday night I like to hang out with my friends, some may tell me…
On Sunday I like to sleep and to wake up late, others will tell me…
Football is better, your friends say me…
Think about studying and working, your family tells me…

... But then I think and smile...

What do they know about what mountain-biking represents to me?

What do they know about the emotions and sensations that awake me every Sunday morning quite early, doesn’t matter if it is cold or warm, just only for the pleasure of a little bit of pedaling with my bike?

What do they know about those days when I fell down, I ended up soaked and/or covered with mud, I punctured three times, or my entire body just felt so sore that I could barely move?

What do they know about the satisfaction I have after a race that lasted for 4-5 hours, and when all the people in the finishing line congratulated me just for achieving it?
What do they know about all the scratches that I discover on my arms and legs every Monday morning?
What do they know about the impotence I feel when all my previous efforts turn up to be useless due to a puncture or a mechanical problem?

What do they know about the lost opportunities during those Sundays when it is raining, and when during the rest of the week the weather was great?

What do they know about the short water sips, the energetic bars and Power-gels, and about all those sensations I have when I can’t even walk when I get out of my bike?
What do they know about the forest roads and walking paths, and about all those hidden places you can quickly and healthily discover, while having lots of fun?

What do they know about how much I love this sport?

So many people say that mountain-biking has nothing to do with life, I do not know how much do they know about life, but about mountain-biking they know nothing.

Finally, and with a collection of videos and photos that I gathered over the last months during my trips, I would like to show you just a little bit about what is all this about. Hope you like it!!

http://vimeo.com/80090551

See you soon with new adventures!

Marc.

ForseenPOMERANIA Scientific Camp 2013: sausages, sunflower seeds, beer...with a little bit of GIS & Remote Sensing!!

Hi all!!

As promised...today I will tell you a little bit of what I did in Poland last August!!

The reason why I decided to come back to the eastern part of Europe was the International scientific camp for forestry students called ForseenPOMERANIA Camp, which took place in a very small village called Wrzosy, at the Pomerania region in the northwestern corner of the country.

Palac Wrzosy (Heathers Palace)

More or less half a year ago, I started looking for a summer course that could offer me the possibility to learn something exciting about forestry; in a different country; and of course, surrounded by lots of international students coming from all over the world! Then, when I found the information about the camp I thought...WOW!! This sounds SUPER-COOL because it suits everything I was looking for! Have a look:

The scientific camp was organized within the European Union project Interreg IVA: "Development of a trans-border decision support system for remote and model assessment of forest dendromass in Pomerania region", which started in 2011 and its end will be in 2013. The project consists on a partnership between German and Polish institutions, and aims to produce statistical models for the prediction of forest above ground biomass in different forest ecosystems, and using different types of Remote Sensing information. The research is carried out in the Forest District of Drawno, and from the Polish side, is conducted by different scientists from the Poznan University of Life Sciences, in Poland.

During one week I had the opportunity to collaborate in all field work tasks within the project, mostly those related with the accurate estimation of the biomass in each single part of each model tree. Apart from that, one of the most exciting moments was when I cut my first tree!!! YES, FINALLY after so many years of studying forestry!! Now I can say that I am a little bit more "complete" as a graduate student! :)

The selected tree was a Scots pine of approximately 20m height, and with a diameter around 15cm.

Sample of the tree felled

Once the tree was felled!!

In order to make the camp even more appealing to the attendants, the organizers also prepared different workshops, which were conducted by two members of the staff in ESRI Poland, and by Dr. Martin Isenburg, the founder of Rapidlasso and scientist at LAStools (see Interesting links in this blog). This software is a collection of highly-efficient, batch scriptable, multi-core command line tools (with GUI and ArcGIS toolbox) for processing LiDAR data, that also contains tools dedicated to forestry applications.

Workshop organized by ESRI Poland: Introduction to LIDAR data management with ArcGIS

Last but not least....we even had the time every evening to prepare a bonfire and have some fun!!

Roasted sausages, beer & sunflower seeds: bonfire with friends!!!

But before entering that, let me explain you something that really surprised me. Did you know that in Poland they do not have lunch!! The schedule concerning meals used to be like the following: 1) around 8-9h, breakfast (everything like usual); 2) between 16-17h, dinner!!! I must admit that those dinners have been the earliest ones in my life, and I had the opportunity to experience quite many different cultures! I thought that having dinner around 19h in France was a record, but now...I think that now is going to be quite hard to find a place where dinner is even earlier! Despite of the time, dinners felt like something special! Maybe it was because the dinning room was all dressed for a wedding, or maybe because the owners of the palace cooked for us some of the most typical Polish specialties!!; 3) around 21-22h, bonfire. That was the perfect time to chill out with the other students and to get to know each other in a more relaxed way, while drinking some good Polish beer, eating tones of sunflower seeds, and roasting some delicious pork sausages!!! Evenings were absolutely great despite the crazy amount of mosquitoes!!

I would like to thank all the staff and students from Poznan University of Life Sciences for organizing the camp, and specially to Kamil Kondracki. Not only did I learn something new about GIS and Remote Sensing, I also discovered how forests look like in Poland (something that also quite surprised me, since most of the forest area in the country is occupied by Scots pine, giving me the impression that I was back to Finland), and all this together with lots of interesting people with whom I shared a great week!! This post is also a little bit yours since you made it possible! The perfect complement after finishing my master degree!!

Here you can watch a video they prepared about the week:

To all my new Polish friends....

SEE YOU ALL IN THE NORTHERN EUROPEAN REGIONAL MEETING 2013!!!

I am very excited about discovering with you one of the oldest virgin forests in Europe!

Marc.

The end of the Master of Science in European Forestry-Erasmus Mundus program

Hi everyone!!

YESSS!!! As the title of this new post informs you,...I HAVE recently FINISHED the MSc. in European Forestry-Erasmus Mundus program!! So, now I have one more certificate "in my pocket", and this time...an international one!!!
The public defense of my thesis took place the last 5th of July at AgroParisTech university in Nancy, France. Therefore, and as you can imagine, before the event I had some superbusy weeks working hard to get ready for the special occasion, being that the reason why it has been a long time since I published my last post in this blog! I am not planning to extend too much about my thesis here, since the topic is quite specific and not all of you may be interested in reading too much about it. However, just let me say that the main goal of the project was the applicability of remote sensing techniques in the extraction of different forest attributes. Within the wide range of remote sensing tools that nowadays exist, I worked with Airborne Laser Scanning sensors, which basically consist on an airplane carrying a laser device that emits a laser pulse. Whenever this pulse touches something (e.g. trees), it bounces back into the device measuring the distance to the object. In the end, we can obtain a superfancy distribution of points (laser hits) in 3D!!

3D distribution of the laser points obtained when scanning a couple of trees

It looks impressive, right? I really enjoyed working with this topic, since it allowed me to apply all my knowledge in forestry, but at the same time, to work in something more related to computer sciences! Just imagine it as the perfect combination between field and ofice-based work!

For those who may be interested in the topic and want to know a little bit more of what I did, here you have a video of my presentation. In order to obtain my degree certificate, I was also required to prepare an online presentation. With this, all former, present, and future students of this master program, can interact in an online forum specifically created for this study program. Is great to get to know what other students are doing, and to face all types of questions coming from students from all over the world!

Then, once my presentation was done and all the necessary formalities to get my master degree were completed, I continued working at the Central European Regional Office of the European Forest Institute - Observatory for European Forests (EFICENT-OEF), in Nancy (France). My contract with the institution ended the last 31st of July. 
In my opinion, the European Forest Institute is one of the strongest institutions in the "old continent", when considering forest research. That is the reason why my intention was to continue being involved with them, so I could continue participating in new and exciting research projects. However, the office has recently changed his head, and it seems to be still quite unclear what kind of scope the institution will take in the coming years.
Bad luck, but other interesting and attractive opportunities will surely appear!

After finishing my contract in Nancy, and despite the terrible situation that my home country, Spain, is currently going through, I decided to come back home and start looking for a job or a PhD program that motivates me. I am quite confident in my search, since I think that I have a good background and a little bit of experience, and I do not have any limitations in terms of location. After these last two years, I consider myself prepared and willing to live in any other country, with different culture, people, etc. It's only a matter of being active in my new job: searching for a job!!

However, now we are in mid August, and as I told you, I left France in the end of July. Before going back to Spain, I decided to travel a little bit more (OF COURSE!!), and at the same time I attended a very interesting course, this time...in Poland!! But I will tell more about it in the next post! COMING SOON!!

Marc.