IUFRO 2007 – Seoul, Korea

To an over flow room I thrilled and inspired with a presentation on “Science Delivery” on Wednesday afternoon! Actually the room was sparsely filled and I don’t know if I inspired anyone but I was able to deliver a hastily constructed presentation on science delivery to a receptive audience. (Receptive= no one walked out on me.) I was happy to pitch and provide my prospective on the following:

• What is science delivery
• The role of scientist in science delivery
• Knowing your audience and matching your delivery system to your audience
• Measuring the success of science delivery and adapting you tactics to a changing audience demands

The technical sessions have ended and we are now leaving the CoEX and traveling to the Korean Forest Research Institute for the closing ceremonies and farewell dinner.

The conference is not over and we begin our field trip adventure in the morning. While I think we have enjoyed Seoul it is time to get out of the city and view FLR up close!

Aaaah! I am not getting any better at sleeping…but, a trip to Korea is a rare event and sleep does not really seem to be that important. It is the beginning of the end of the formal conference and the final plenary session is going swimmingly.

Last night featured a search for kimchi and mekju…wandering “the streets of Baltimore”–oh no, definitely NOT Baltimore or Kansas or Oz. A small group set out from the IBIS, turning left heading away from the COEX. A series of turns took us into progressively narrower streets lined with closely spaced tall and narrow lighted signs. Korean symbols mixed with English symbols, mixing messages far beyond my ability to make sense. The streets were crowded; everything moved. I do find the signs very disorienting, undermining their reason for being. A small untethered poodle-like tan dog loosely followed by an unattended child caught my eye–I have seen only 3 pets on the streets. Tanks in front of seafood restaurants featured flounder, unidentified fish, unidentified invertebrates of various sorts (I am a botanist!), but I was most impressed by the eels. I guess you can choose your dinner; what makes the perfect eel for eating? We watched an automotive stand-off as a line of cars headed east met a line of cars headed west–in a narrow street. The standoff was managed by an energetic proprietor of the nearby bar (I think). Happy to report “Mission accomplished, except for the kimchi.”

A near-sleepless night and I finally got up at 5, organized my stuff, and took a walk in a city waking up. There were street sweepers–men on machines on big streets and women with brooms and wearing hooded scarves cleaning small streets. I could not find coffee at that hour-both Starbuck’s and Dunkin’ Donuts were closed. The streets were remarkably quiet–a short lived quiet that few but the street-sweepers and visiting insomniacs  enjoyed.

Tuesday afternoon John Stanturf told me that there were a couple of conference presenters who had not arrived and we might have some “holes” in the agenda for Wednesday afternoon. Just in case these “holes” are still a problem on Wednesday I was asked to prepare a talk on science delivery (tech transfer).

I decided that the best way to respond to such a request would be to get 3 hours sleep and do a rush PPT in the wee hours of the morning. As you can imagine, I am approaching this day “looking and feeling my best” and hoping that I can be coherent to the handful of people that might be around for the last sessions of the conference. :-)

As the second day of conference came to a close, I finally got my hotel straightened out again… I was short one night’s worth of reservation and the hotel was booked full. I thought about park benches and the terrace garden on the 15th floor, but fortunately the most capable and hard-working event coordinator came through and got me another night in a real bed. With that security in hand, I made a dash for the Samesong Station to catch the subway. The plan was simple: head north across the river and meet friends (Anthony Davis from the University of Idaho and Doug Jacobs from Purdue) for libations and dinner. After realizing the fare machines didn’t take cash and fighting through the mob at the ticket counter (including one very irrate woman), I was on the train and heading west toward Sadang Transfer Station (and not realizing the poor guy being yelled at by the irrate woman didn’t give me the correct fair). The closer we got, the fuller the train became. At the stop before Sadang, a crush, a mob, a gob, of Korean humanity pushed, shoved, and squeezed into the train. I was a good foot taller than everyone, looking out over a sea of black hair and dark blue business suits. I wanted to take a photo, but we were packed so sardine-like that I couldn’t unzip my pack. At Sadang the mass streamed out of the car, pulling me along. From Sadang it was north to Seoul Station, where I discovered I was 200 won short of fare money. The ticket went through but the gate wouldn’t open. Fortunately the kindly old woman guarding the gate had pity on me. Anthony and Doug had failed to tell me one important feature of the Seoul Station and my journey to the Hilton where we were to meet…. there are many exits from the station. I felt like a gopher sticking my head out of the ground. Nope, this exit isn’t right. Back down into the tunnels. Nope, this exit isn’t right…. back down into the tunnel, repeat, repeat. Finally I took sight of the hotel, but it was on the other side of 8 lanes of traffic. Back down into the bowels. It took about 40 minutes to go 18 km from the COEX center to Seoul Station; it took me nearly 25 mintues to cross the street!

After a quick stroll through a nearby market (we passed on the raw silk worm pupae and the raw octopus and the suits and the shoes… hmmmm, how long have those chickens been laying around outside?), we headed via subway to Itaewon, which was referred to as a “night-life” area. Lot’s of white folks there; lots of people in general. After a brief stroll we found Buddha’s Belly up a flight of stairs and had some good Thai cousine and conversation. The trip home was much less eventful…

During the morning I snuck out of the modeling sessions and went, literally, across the street to the Bongeunsa Temple operated by the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism. They are ramping up to celebrate the Buddha’s birthday on the 24th. They had brightly colored lotus lanterns hanging everywhere, with best wishes to Buddha hanging beneath. Check out some of my photos of them (as well as some great street-side plantings of trees and me being techno-nerd calling home via the Internet). In the temple incense was wafting, monks were chanting, and the steady beat of drum calmed the mind. Lunch was spent with Kwan-Soo Woo. He was a grad student at the University of Idaho… rec’d his degree around 2002 and now works for the Korean Forest Research Institute. He wanted to catch up on all that is new in Moscow. It was a nice lunch. Afternoon had some good presentations…. my wife would say they left the best for last: a presentation in which the speaker said if you want healthy forests, you need healthy soil. Doh! Okay, I’m off to get lost on the subway….

Finally, my first blog–and I had to be shamed into it…Both Mel and Kas have already contributed. Sheesh!

I am exhausted, but pretty jazzed up, too. My travel (like Kas’) has been brutal. Who could imagine what going to the opposite side of the globe would do to one’s metabolism? I keep thinking I will equilibrate soon, but soon is a long time coming.

Impressions from travel: The Narita international airport has the cleanest public bathroom I have ever seen. Eating noodles with chopsticks on a plane is a “trip”. I saw the ice pack on Hudson Bay–amazing. It was awesome, beautiful, huge, powerful. Where were the polar bears? (Hopefully on a secure ice pack…) The land of Siberia is empty. Even the mountainous areas of Japan seemed pretty dark as we flew over…

Arrival at the IBIS, my home away from home: I arrived about midnight local time, and I had to hear a voice from home…so I just called Randy. When I awakened him from his well-earned sleep, he grunted a friendly hello. (Who is this?) At least I felt a little better. (There was pay back, however.) I am one who tends to try to figure stuff out for myself, and that is OK, but traveling in Korea has reminded me that asking for help is really a good thing. It sometimes solves my dilemma, and almost always yields smiles. People are generally good and helpful. (Perhaps there is yet hope for us all!)

The meeting: An international meeting is always eye-opening (though I do not speak from much personal experience…) Not only do participants bring unique perspectives on science, but they also work in really cool places. Sharing a technical language can lull us into assumptions about forests, but those assumptions are quickly challenged when you get to see pictures and talk with people who work in very different places. Perhaps we should listen more carefully to each other at “home” and look for the “places” where our facile use of a common language might be obscuring significant information.

Whew! I am done for now. May be time for a nap. (What can I say? My brain is slow.) Oh, I forgot to mention I gave a talk yesterday. I was in the running for the best paper of the day, but my near accomplishment was forgotten because the shouting lady spoke after me. More on all that another time.

A lot of great minds in forestry convened on Seoul and a lot of positive research and on-the-ground restoration is going on to counter the negative. From speakers we have heard a lot about the negatives… designated National Parks in Indonesia basically clear-cut, illegally. The ‘logger’ simply ignored the boundary and survey markers. That park is undergoing a complete afforestation effort with buy-in from the local community. People and forests… that is a really big theme here. Without cooperation and interest of people on or near the forests there is little hope of beginning the taste of reforestation. Desertification in China and Mongolia, another of the negatives, is proceeding apace. One must ask whether there is enough money and societal will to tackle and ultimately reverse these ecological disasters? South Korea is doing its part whether funding on-the-ground sand stabilization in China or reforestation in North Korea, they are not standing idly by. Shots of the yellow dust storms of northern China blowing east to blank out the view in Seoul may be a primary motive and rationale to go the source.

The meeting was scheduled to start at 9 am. I needed to register so I headed over early. A good thing. The convention center is enormous, and I apparently took the long way to get! The conference started with the obligatory welcomes, including one from Jim Reaves, the Associate Deputy Chief of Research and Development, USDA Forest Service. Jim had the honor of having twice as much time as the others to speak, and it was good to hear “our vision” as seen from the top of the organization. The plenary session could be summarized with two conclusions: communication is essential and one size doesn’t fit all. Hmmm. Pretty much summarizes everything we do in natural resource management.

At noon the techno-savvy Randy McCracken from the Southern Research Station helped me call home over the Internet. Pretty dang cool. Lunch was at a small mom-n-pop restaurant a few blocks from the conference center. Kimchi stew with kimchi sides. It was hot (temperature-wise) and just the right spicy for me. Unfortunately, my practice on round wooden chopsticks did not prepare me for the flat metal version.

I was the first speaker after lunch; there were two concurrent sessions and I was pleased with the attendance. It’s always nice to be an early speaker and get that over with… makes the rest of the conference more enjoyable. As always, I was amazed at speakers making presentations in English, despite that not being their first language. It gets me fired-up to go home and work on my Spanish, even though I will probably never have the courage to make a formal, technical presentation in that language.

The conference ended day one with a very nice dinner in the ballroom, decent wine, good conversaton, and “gentle and soft” music from a string quartet. One of the great things about an international meeting like this is meeting and talking with like-minded folks from around the world. My table hosted folks from the UK, Australia, Malaysia, and Denmark. The food was mostly western, but the seared tuna salad was great.

It’s day two of the IUFRO conference… so I guess I have a couple of days of catching up to do. After a butt-numbing 13 hour flight from LAX, I arrived at the Incheon International Airport about 1730. Brutal best describes it. Most amazing was that the gentleman sitting next to my never got up during the flight. It was a 90-minute bus ride to the COEX, site of the meeting, and then a nice 10 minute walk to my hotel, the IBIS. All I can say is a hearty thank-you to Mee-Sook Kim for finally working out the details of my screwed up reservations (the hotel drama, unfortunately, doesn’t end there…).

First impressions? Courteous and friendly are the people. Starting at the airport, the road to Seoul is lined with greenhouses; it looked like vegetable production. I was surprised at how green everything was, and how many trees were planted, seemingly everywhere. Flowers too. Even as the greenhouses gave way to densely-packed high-rise apartments, trees were still a significant component. And clean, the country is very clean. By the time I walked into my room is was 2030. A quick shower and a shave and off to bed… trying to get on the Korean clock asap.

9:00am: Opening Ceremony

The conference began with opening remarks from the Director General of the Korea Forest Research Institute, Chief of the Korean Forest Service, Associate Deputy Chief of the US Forest Service and the IUFROM President.
Along with the usual “I am happy to be here” greetings I was taken aback with the emphasis from all the speakers on the current threats to our forests. The point seemed to be that all restoration work needs to be seen in the context of a continuing threat of deforestation and degradation of existing forests. An obvious statement, of course, but one that was strongly emphasized by all the speakers.

9:30-10am: Coffee Break

…… somehow the coffee is not strong enough this morning. Might have to go to Starbucks at the next break. (yes, there are Starbucks everywhere!)

10am: Plenary Session

Four speakers that spoke about global partnerships in FLR, models for urban forest restoration, conflict management in multiparty restoration projects, forest damage history and FLR in Korea.

Some of the highlights for me were:

• 1.6 billion people rely on forest for their survival and livelihood.
• The FLR solution can not / must not be just another conservation approach – we need to address the human element
• we must balance ecological integrity, human well being and livelihoods
• there is no model for FLR; no one size fits all approach. It will take a range of approaches that can accomplish FLR depending on geography, type of degradation, and local social concerns.
• changing ecosystems = changing social systems
• social systems that created the degraded ecosystems are still in place/ it is all about balance
• remember that emphasis of FLR needs to be on social systems. (Knowing all the ecology does not translate to FLR.)
• in FLR, as with everything in life, we must be adaptive and able to change tactics – We must keep learning along the way.
• FLR is about “well being”, but “well being” for whom? Keep in mind that well being varies by the target group as well as location undergoing reforestation.
• Effective communications means that we should talk about ecological and social “interests” instead of talking about positions

The Petropolis Challenge

“Restore forest landscapes to benefit people and nature and contribute to reversing the trends of forest loss and degradation.”

12-1:30pm Lunch.

Hmmm…. Kimchi stew with sides of rice and kimchi. Life is Great!

1:30pm: Concurrent sessions

I have taken time to work on technical issues with some of the CoEX support staff. It is a challenge to gather the PPTs from the presenters. Looks like most of the scientists believe in the Just In Time (JIT) system of science delivery.

Also, I have been bouncing back and forth between the concurrent sessions. Because most of the material is at a granular level it is apparent to me that the best way to blog this information will be to set up a separate page of the conference schedule that contains links to the PPTs for each speaker. Look for that update later in the week.

This morning I went to Itaewon via taxi (15000) and decided to save some money and return to the hotel on the subway. Needless to say the metro in Seoul is a tad more complicated than the one in DC. After misreading some directional signs and taking a wrong train I was finally able to make my way back to the CoEx. Just making it back to a known location helped to build some confidence for my next journey on the Korean rails.

IUFRO registration began at 1pm and after wandering though the colossal convention center I was able to find registration site and meet up with John Stanturf, Park Yeong Dea, and Peter Burbridge. We greeted some people who were arriving directly from the airport while others had been in Seoul for a day or so. We all exchanged stories to long flights, missed sleep and the need for more coffee. Traveling long distances is the great equalizer – except for the local Koreans we are all jet lagged.

Song Jaesoon briefed us on the logistical and technical support that will be offered by CoEx. Realizing that many presenters had not submitted their PPT presentations I decided that it would be best for me to be back onsite at 7:30am to assist in last minute technical organization.

Finally I am ending my day by sitting on the terrace of the Ibis hotel. The music is soothing and the fountain and greenery create an oasis of tranquility in a city that is amazingly busy for a Sunday afternoon. Now it is time for a good nights rest before the conference starts in a few hours.

Today’s weather was dreary and rainy but I managed to get outside and walk to the CoEx and Bongeunsa Buddhist Temple. Photos of the temple are located here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/iufro.korea2007/0512Bongeunsa_Temple

I found one geocache at the temple before having a garlic laden lunch. :-)
After wandering back to the hotel I took a nap (still trying to adjust to the time change) and tried to get some things in order before I go to work tomorrow afternoon.