Youthink PS is Western Canada¹s post secondary resource guide for high school students planning on attending university, college or other Canadian post secondary institutions and is distributed to 400 high schools across BC and Alberta.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1147864
SPRING 2019 > YOUTHINK PS > 12 YOUTHINK.CA Beyond the Classroom One UBC co-op student heads into the wild Marcos Kavlin is studying Natural Resourc- es Conservation in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia. Since joining the Faculty's co-op program in his second year, he has gained 16 months of work experience that has given him the opportunity to travel and make a difference in the world. "What I liked about co-op is that it gave me a platform to practice what I was learning in class, while also allowing me to make contacts in my field, make some money, travel, and grow as a pro - fessional and as a human being," Marcos explains. Like all co-op students, Marcos alternates academics with practical experience. He is cur - rently finishing off a 12-month work term in Bolivia with the Wildlife Conservation So- ciety, helping to develop a management plan for Jatata (Geonoma deversa) palm trees. The Tsimane peoples of the Quiquibey River have used the leaves of these trees as a roofing ma- terial for centuries. Marcos' co-op work is essential because the indigenous communities that use this resource are located in a protected area where the extraction of natural resources is illegal without a management plan. Throughout this term, a typical day for Marcos would depend on whether he was at the planning stage or collecting data in the field. During plan - ning, he typically awoke to a cold morning, sur- rounded by mountains, barking dogs and chirping birds. He could really feel the altitude as he walked up a steep road to the La Paz office. After greeting the guard and chatting with colleagues in Spanish, he would set up his computer and begin planning his field trips to collect the data required to de - velop the management plan. He consulted maps, charts and made detailed calculations. During the data-collection phase, Marcos worked in the field and travelled by boat to visit indigenous communities along the river. On these days, he woke up in his tent at 6 a.m. to find it was already hot out. He could hear the river flowing nearby, and myriad other jungle sounds. Gath - ering his tools and packing up his tent, Marcos would begin the day by meeting with the people of nearby communities. They speak Tsimane, a tongue Marcos was not familiar with; however, he was able to pick up some of their language and eventually communicate quite well. Marcos was eager to learn from those who have been harvest - ing Jatata for hundreds of years; part of his duties involved listening to stories about the jungle from the Tsimane people. After breakfast they would head into the trees and follow the trails used for finding and harvest- ing Jatata, obtaining geo-reference points to make the polygons needed for maps. Whenever an ani- mal made a sound, they would stop abruptly while the locals considered whether or not it could feed them for the next few days. Between the birds, beasts and falling leaves, the forest was never quiet. The whole time, Marcos was gathering informa- tion on where they had harvested the resource, where they were going to harvest the resource in the upcoming year, and where the resource was untouched. After gathering this data, Marcos would head back to the community with his col - leagues and pack their materials into a boat. After travelling by boat to the next commu- nity, Marcos and the team set up their tents again. Before dark they bathed in the river , washed their clothes, cooked a meal and then retired to their tents. When the sky was clear, they could see an infinity of stars up above. "I honestly don't think I've seen anything so beautiful," Marcos reflects. "We went to bed exhausted, but those beautiful nights, the moments we shared with indigenous peoples in each community, and every animal we saw would fill us up with energy and make every - thing worth it." Over the course of many months, and after sev- eral trips down the river meeting with indigenous populations, Marcos helped to create a manage- ment plan for the sustainable extraction of Jatata by the Tsimane peoples of the Quiquibey River. He realized that the ancestral practices of the Tsimane were already sustainable and that his job was to "help them present this knowledge in the form of a management plan" rather than to im - pose a foreign management structure that might negatively impact their community livelihoods. Now that Marcos is reaching the end of his co-op experience, he's started looking back on what being a co-op student has given him. "When I started at UBC, I was ambitious and had many dreams, but I was shy and didn't really trust my own work. I had doubts about what I wanted to do professionally. After these co-op work terms, I feel more centred. I now trust myself to do a good job." Upon his return to UBC, Marcos will com - plete his final year of academic courses. He would like to follow this with graduate studies in envi- ronmental policy, energy policy or sustainable development. "Once that's done, I'd like to find a job that allows me to travel and continue working with people around the globe." • Follow UBC Forestry co-op students as they continue their adventures @forestrycoop on Instagram. Image courtesy of Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia