Today's blogger: Thelma Crook

 Rain, thunderstorms and, apparently, a mini tornado cut short our excursion yesterday, so first thing this morning saw us set off again to the Jizerka Mountains. The two teams split up to complete their vegetation and soil surveys and their water, soil pH and moisture sampling. The weather was much kinder to us today and we managed to complete our sampling runs and be back at camp by 3pm for a well earned rest. This evening Jana (research colleague of Josef) showed us slides of Jizerka Mountains in 1988 and 2004. As we are only able to see the vegetation in its current condition, it put the research work into perspective and allowed us to see the   changes that have occurred over the last 30 years. It shows how important it is to monitor and evaluate these projects over long periods of time. We are really lucky and privileged to be part of this research. Thanks to Earthwatch and Alcoa. To finish off the evening Mohamed provided us with a very interesting and entertaining presentation on his background and the country that he lives in, Suriname. It was a great learning curve, as many of us, until we met Mohamed, were completely unaware of where Suriname was.