Twice today I indulged in the subtle art of 'networking' (which is what my dad likes to call it, but are no more than simple meetings or exchanges with people whom you don't know that well but would like to know better in future... where there would be cases of erm, increased mutual benefit :P And you can learn a lot from them, too. Such people make life more interesting.)

First was a certain Briton, Jonathan Smith, who was the development officer for Sungei Buloh in its early days. He is now, as he has been for the past decade, the Manager and Warden for the Essex Wildlife Trust's Tollesbury Wick Marshes Reserve (one hour north of London). He's on holiday in S'pore with his wife and three kids. He was at Buloh to give a talk - supposedly to reflect and share his past experiences in developing the Reserve and to give an assessment of the current state of the wetlands, but he talked more about the management of his own Reserve... which was more or less the same as what I covered in my Resource Management lectures and reserve field trip. We chatted a bit and he invited me up to his Reserve... "You must come one day, it's just out of the M25. We'll pick you up from the train station!" How kind. :)

Then in the evening it was dinner with Siva and Jen Lee, the New Paper environmental journalist whose articles we had archived in a little online project, which has yet to be completed; she was kind enough to treat us. Learnt to think from a new perspective - that of the media... lol. :P We talked lots... mainly about cycling, park connectors and wildlife corridors, the state of nature in Singapore, engaging the public, ideas for her articles... ...

posted by Husky @ 11:36 PM  |