My name is Nicola, I am from Scotland and recently started a new job for Bunloit Rewilding Project, based at Loch Ness. I am have a background in agriculture and ecology, with an MSc in Ecology and Conservation. I have done research with drones in the rainforests of Sabah, Malaysia and have volunteered on habitat restoration projects in Kalimantan, Indonesia. I have also worked for years as a ranger across Scotland. My current role is to measure biodiversity and carbon across a Scottish Estate and manage the estate to sink more carbon, increase biodiversity and create rural employment. I am very interested in the ecology of habitat restoration in a temperate and tropical forest context. GiS will help me track changes, spatial and temporal across the estate and let us know if our management is working.
Great to read about all the other projects and parts of the world people are coming from on this platform.
Hi I am Angela, from the Philippines. I became a marine conservation ecologist to “save the Earth” and I hope what I do on a daily basis helps that, somehow!
I am currently working in Japan as a post-doctoral researcher for blue carbon (mangroves and seagrasses) in the Philippines and Indonesia. I learned GIS many years ago and need a refresher to make nice maps and for spatial analysis of small scale fishers of mangroves and seagrasses.
In my free time, I try to chase waves around Hokkaido on my surfboard and explore the natural landscape of this island, cook and taste many styles of food, and when inspired, play some music.
I’m Delmond, a graduate of Tourism ,Environmental Practices and Wildlife Management and I am currently working in Sanparks Biodiversity Social Projects. I have been using Arc GIS for some time now but I still need to expand my knowledge and reach my full potential in GIS.
Hi everyone, my name is Chiara and I live in Cambodia, I took a class on GIS in university but I forgot almost everything and last year I had to learn it again for a project at work and I had hard time doing it all by myself, so now I am here to learn the proper way to use this really useful program.
@Hannah detailed instructions and QGIS screenshots on this page of one of my May refresher courses (under revision, so may be republished at a different url on a later date). If you have many files to hunt through, after you’ve gone to Layer > Add Layer > Add Vector Layer..., and clicked on the ... button to choose the source, before you look for the file, select GPS eXchange Format (GPX) from the dropdown box in the bottom right of the Open OGR Supported Vector Dataset(s) pop-up. This will make QGIS only show you .gpx files
Dear Lucy.
I was born and raised in a small village Disho, Ethiopia, and joined conservation work at my early age before 20 years fully employed with Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Programme(EWCP).
I have been working with EWCP as Community Leader and North Manager responsible for various community livelihood activities in different community conservation and protected area such as Guassa Community Conservation Area and Simien Mountain National Park. I am enthusiastic and passionate for biodiversity conservation and community development in Ethiopia hoppoing better brighter for my country and the world as a whole. i am working tirelessly to be true patriot and exceptional conservation champion for my country and, for wildlife tourism to fulfill my life vision. I am part of the EWCP family in Ethiopia with huge responsibility to oversee all community conservation works in North Ethiopia. So, if i will get this QGIS trainning confedtially it will help me for my future conservatio work.
Catching up with all the self-introductions - what a joy to meet you all!
@Royner_Carrasquero , it’s great to have your remote sensing expertise on hand
@Takem my hope with these open courses is that other educators may find it useful to incorporate these materials into their own teaching, with appropriate citation - you’ll welcome to start a topic under the Teach category if you’d like to talk about this
Welcome, fellow twin - maybe one day we’ll get a chance to chat about our experiences of twinship, @Phumziee
I’m sure we’ll benefit from your different perspectives, @szikartata , @pkeidel
That’s interesting, @pkeidel - in which field are you job-hunting? Do you know why they state this preference?
If not, please tell me @oladun_joye , either here, by email or in response to the anonymous post-course survey. This course is a first draft following much previous experience teaching GIS. I know it’s far from perfect, and I’m happy to add everyone’s suggestions to my existing list of improvements. I’m also looking for collaborators, and I’ll mention this later in the course
Not at all, @emmamay - everyone is free to study and join the conversations whenever they can. In fact, after stress-testing this platform earlier this week (thankfully I fixed the email delivery issues!), I decided to leave registration open until the end of the week. So if you want to bring anyone else on board, just ask them to register at https://verdantlearn-courses.webflow.io/gis-beginners before Monday morning
Agreed, @tiffanycaleap - like any technical skill, you forget the details if you don’t hae a reason to use the skills regularly!
You’ll have noticed our Bengal Florican learning circle, @Kroem696 - as our resident expert on the species, you’re welcome to add a few notes to that topic about your florican conservation efforts
Thanks for indicating your previous experience and willingess to help, @pkeidel and @MaRivera. One of the many reasons I had for making this a public forum, rather than private, was to enable you all to point to the evidence of your new or existing expertise, and your willingness to support others in their conservation work. These things can sometimes make all the difference when applying for a job or promotion. I encourage you all to check out WildHub, which is an amazing with a much broader remit than our capacity-building community
@Hannah, start a new topic under Learn/GIS with your challenge, and I will see if I can help nearer the end of the course, if someone doesn’t get there before me e.g. @JonathanGatward
Hi All,
My name is Arnold Tshipa currently employed as an ecologist with an interest in law enforcement, herbivore migration, and landscape ecology. GIS has become a critical component in all these sections and hence my interest in learning. My work covers three ecosystems which are Hwange National Park, Mana Pools National park both in Zimbabwe, and Busanga Plains, Kafue National Park Zambia.
Hello everyone!
I’m oni olamide Oluwatosin. Am an undergraduate in the federal University of technology Akure, Ondo state Nigeria in the department of Ecotourism and wildlife management. I’m a member of Environmental Conservation Club ECC , Elomgreenie and Nigeria Conservation Club NSEC. I’m currently doing my internship with Omu Resort.
I was introduced to remote sensing and GIS earlier this year where I used QGIS software for a lot of practical work.
I’m a nature lover with a great interest in wildlife conservation.
I’m glad to be here to tap from the knowledge of QGIS .
My name is Carmen. I’m currently studying a postgraduate diploma on wildlife management at the university of Otago, in Dunedin, New Zealand. Looking forward to learning GIS!
Hi everyone,
My name is Megan and I am currently doing my MSc in South Africa. I am working on population genomics in Cape dwarf eelgrass. So far whenever I have done anything on QGIS it has been self-taught, and so I am excited to take this opportunity to learn how to use QGIS more effectively and in a more structured environment.
I am an Italian marine biologist and a few months ago I moved back to my Country after seven years spent in Ireland where I obtained a PhD in Zoology and worked in the blue biotechnology field. However, my professional background includes also marine conservation and outreach activities carried out with WWF, Seasearch Ireland and other associations. For instance, I was involved for many years in projects focused on the conservation of the Loggerhead turtle in the South of Italy while in Ireland I contributed to activities aimed at informing divers and general public about marine sponge biology and diversity. Convincing people that sponges are animals and not plants has never stopped being a challenge!
I have recently realised that I would love to reroute my carrier back towards conservation, so I figured that it would be very useful to add some GIS basics to my skills, so here I am now! Thank you so much Lucy for the opportunity to attend this free course you’re giving us, I’m looking forward to learning and interacting with the coursemates!
Maybe there is someone else here in the community who loves to play the ukulele: we’d have something else to chat about besides GIS then
I did my BSc in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology majoring in Genetics and Biochemistry. Last year, I completed my BSc Honours in Biodiversity and Ecology. I am working for the City of Cape Town in the Biodiversity Department and I have decided to learn GIS to add to my skillset. I am very eager to apply what I learn in this course to the working environment.
Hello, everyone
My name is Nobuhle Msweli from South Africa. I’m currently doing my 3th year in Nature Conservation. I would like to learn more about QGIS as I believe it will assist me grow in my career.
