Sites and Activities
Beijing and Sichuan will be the two study sites in China. The main themes in Beijing and vicinity will be economic transition, land-use change, and sustainable development. Students will have seminars/discussions on China’s demography, economic growth, land use, environmental policy, desertification, and forest and wildlife management. Also, sampling schemes will be discussed and demonstrated. Participants will have time to obtain national/regional statistics relevant to their projects, and, if necessary, they will have opportunities to visit agroforestry and desertification combating activities, and watershed management projects outside Beijing.
In Sichuan, the main themes will be biodiversity protection, climate change, and ecological restoration. The students may stop at a reserve to tour the panda habitat, and to study the management of protected areas for biodiversity and ecotourism. They will also visit the natural forest protection, slope land conversion, and population resettlement projects, and discuss issues related to deforestation, soil erosion, poverty, community-based resource management, and the social and environmental impacts of the logging bans and the Three Gorges Project. Moreover, they will carry out household, village, and county surveys and interviews to obtain primary data.