The Sri Lanka Program for Forest Conservation, a Yale-based partner of TRI headed by Professor Mark Ashton, recently launched a postgraduate fellowship program. Three fellows were selected for this year, and they began their work in October 2016. They are: Logan Sander (MF 2015, 2014 TRI Fellow), Sander's wife Laura Luttrell, and Blair Rynearson (MF 2015).
The goal of the SLPFC postgraduate fellowship is to provide practical and professional development experience in tropical forest conservation. Fellows will gain experience working with villagers and collaborating with SLPFC and its research station. They will learn tropical taxonomy, nursery propagation and work in collaboration with the NGO to develop a traditional tree garden that provides foods, timbers, medicines and spices. The garden will be designed to serve as a living demonstration for university curricula and practitioner extension. When complete, the program will provide downloadable information from the NGO’s website on the cultural, ecological and economic diversity of plants cultivated in traditional gardens in Sri Lanka.
Read more about the fellowship including some recent updates from the field in this newsletter.