Under way... again

Wellington, 8 August 2010

Welcome to my Oddyssey 2010/11! Well... I haven't gone anywhere just yet, but that'll change fairly soon. And, in the meantime, this'll bring you all up to speed. For those of you who recieved my updates last year, hey! welcome back, feel free to skip over the next paragraph, although do take a moment to appreciate the shiny new blog vehicle. For those who are new to my exploits in the back country, let me explain what's going on.

I work as a botanist for Wildlands, a consultancy company that specialises in ecological surveys and habitat restoration. As part of my job, I spend significant periods of time in the back-blocks around New Zealand, gathering information about the vegetation: hopefully in the pristine native environment, although I have found myself setting up quadrats in the middle of a dairy farm before now! The main part of this fieldwork is for the LUCAS (Land Use and Carbon Analysis System), a programme commissioned by the Ministry for the Environment in order to see how native vegetation across the country changes over time. Basically, there's an eight kilometre grid covering the entire country; wherever gridlines cross, a 20x20m vegetation plot has been established, and it's my job to measure (as part of a team) a variety of environmental parameters at each of these plots. The programme has been running since 2002, and it takes around seven years to measure all of them (we don't try to measure them all every year; that would just be totally impractical!). So this is the first re-measurement of these plots. The raw data we gather is crunched by MfE, and eventually released into the public domain, so I'm allowed to tell you about this. Other projects that I work on sometimes have confidentiality clauses built in, so please forgive me if I'm occasionally vague on certain details (either that, or I'm deliberately skating across across mind-numbingly boring stuff!). My specific job in the team is to survey the vegetation understory, compile species lists, count seedlings and measure their heights, and identify unknown plants. At least, it was last year. I guess I'll find out next week if methodologies have changed... This year, I'm scheduled to spend over seven months in the field (although I do get back to Wellington fairly regularly during this time), working firstly in the Tararuas, then heading down to the South Island, starting in Marlbrough, and working down to Stewart Island to finish around mid-March (all going well). The aim of this blog is not to describe the routine aspects of the job (Gods help us all, I have no desire to talk about each and every plot that I work on), but to showcase the cool and unusual stuff that I find in the hills, and to keep in touch with all you lovely people, so that you don't feel that I've just vanished into a big black hole :) My computer has a mobile modem, so I'll be able to upload posts and photos, and read comments (hint!) fairly regularly, so long as I've got cell-phone coverage.

My first stop this summer field-season will be Masterton; I'm heading up there next Sunday night. I currently have only a vague idea who will be on my team; there are generally four people (including myself), but the roster may change occasionally during the summer (I'm going to use the term "summer" 'cos that's how I think of the field-season, but trust me, I'm fully aware that it ain't summer yet, and won't be for some time!) Masterton will be our base for Tararua work, we'll be there for around a month, although we'll probably be spending several nights in huts or tents, depending upon the remoteness of the plots. The weather tonight is foul; the southerly change came through about three hours ago, and it's not to hard to predict that field work will be cold, wet, and muddy for the next few months. Joy. In the mean-time, I'll still be based in the Porirua office for this week, writing reports like fury, hoping to tie up loose ends before I head out. I'll also be making sure that my field gear is up to scratch (I've had to buy a new pair of boots, for example), and that my camera and iPod (crucial to my sanity!) are working properly.

Cheers for now
Matt