As an erstwhile University student, I haven't attended many conferences, but I've made a point of going to the New Zealand Ecological Society ones throughout my PhD. At each conference I, at the very least, try to put up a poster of my work, or give a talk in the main conference session (sometimes I even do both).

Then, one year, I foolishly offered to become the editor for the newsletter. Don't get me wrong, I quite enjoy it, but it does take about a week of my private time to put an issue together, and it is one of those jobs that nobody else wants. The only way to stop doing it is to forcibly quit, ignoring all the pleas and threats, or die. Being newsletter editor also means that I am an ex-officio council member, so not actually on the committee, but required to attend at least some sessions to keep up with the gossip.

This year I offered a spoken paper and a written paper to the conference, this of course requires that I turn up at the conference.
The Annual General Meeting of the Ecology Society is scheduled into the conference proceedings. This is where we select new committee members and discuss important policy issues for the Society. My presence as newsletter editor is very much desired on these occasions to observe the general ambience for later publication.

In short, I had good reasons for attending the 1998 Conference. The only question was; am I going as me or as DoC staff. As it happened, DoC agreed to pay for the trip because it is important that we keep up with all the developments in Academia.

The conference was rather special for two reasons. It was the first joint conference with the Australian Ecological Society. Out of the nearly 400 people that attended half came from Aussie. As it happens, it is nearly as cheap to fly from Australia to Dunedin as from Auckland, rather ironic really. Really great to catch up with my Aussie counterparts.

The conference also celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the rediscovery of the takahe, before 1948 it was thought to be extinct. So there were many interesting talks on that subject too.

I really enjoyed the conference; it was full on though. Sessions started at nine and went through to five, and there usually were three different sessions on at the same time. Hard to choose between the topics sometimes. In the evening there was always something else to do, wine and cheese evening, AGM, conference diner and dance etc.

After the conference, I adjourned to stay with some friends in Christchurch, before heading out to Craigieburn for a DoC workshop. The workshop was on FBI. No, not the Federal Bureau of Intelligence, but the Foliar Browse Index. I've told you before about the ever-diminishing health of New Zealand forests. Well, we do try to do something about that. In fact, we spend a lot of time and money trying to remedy the situation. In many cases we use helicopters to spread 1080 to control possums. We need to know whether all that time, effort and chemical has the effect we want - that is an improvement in the forest canopy.

So, with the foliar browse technique, developed by Landcare Research, we look at the density of the foliage to check for improvements (or lack thereof). The technique has only been around for about 3-4 years and is undergoing its final refinements. We were there to discuss how good, bad or indifferent the technique is. We spend nearly every day from 8 in the morning to 8 in the evening talking about the technique, the statistics to analyse the technique, the background and refinements to the technique. This might sound boring, but was actually very stimulating.

My boss was there too and took this incriminating picture of me.

As you can see I am flat stick, talking ecology.

The Craigieburn area is interesting. It used to be part of the New Zealand Forest Service and they trialed a lot of "exotic" species here to see what would stabilise the large scree slopes (large areas of gravel sloping down the mountains). At first, it was assumed that scree slopes are caused by human induced disturbances.

People have since decided that the scree slopes are a very ancient and geologically stable phenomenon. Not stable in themselves mind you, they are constantly sliding down the hill. I've run down one once, the closest thing you can do to flying without wings, great fun. Only problem is the fun lasts all of 5 minutes and it takes 2 hours to climb up there.

Craigieburn is a beech forest, and I mean a beech forest. Doing a 20 by 20 plot here is really easy, unlike what we did in the Ruahines. The trees and plants you find here are all BEECH with very very little else. In fact, it is all mountain beech (Nothofagus solandri var. cliffortioides). There were a few other tree species, and two species of mistletoe (Alepis flavida and Peraxilla tetrapetala) on the trees but the rest was beech.

Quite funny about the mistletoe, the FBI can also be used to score the health of mistletoes. The people who do this regularly were complaining that it is hard to score the mistletoes because the clumps are high up in the trees and it is often hard to tell one mistletoe plant from the neighbouring one (they merge into one plant).

They were going to illustrate this point by taking us out into the beech forest at Craigieburn and showing us mistletoe. Unfortunately, at Craigieburn most of the mistletoe is easily spotted at eyeheight or a little above, and the plants are quite discrete. I teased them lots about that [big nasty evil grin]. The plants had flowerbuds but no flowers yet. Possum control was very good in the area; the plants all looked healthy and vigorous.

 Picture and information from Common Alpine and Forest Plants of Tongariro National Park