Experience & reflection

After an online first semester and a partly online second semester, it was very nice to finally have some experience in lab- and fieldwork. I learned a lot about restoration and its importance in this decade. I feel like I also chose a very hands-on professional practice that is very fitting with the current climate, "the UN decade of restoration". A lot of tasks repeated themselves after a few weeks but that was not an issue since it made sure I had the time to improve the skills. In this way, I also had time to think about how to fulfill my end competences in the best way possible and how to get the most out of this professional practice.

I learned how to work in a team, how to split tasks to be more efficient. I learned more about the identification of seaweeds and macrofauna. I learned more about recognizing the different phases of maturity and how to select an ideal transplantation site (which should be sheltered, flat, not too deep…). I learned how to measure recruits and follow up on their growth. I got the opportunity to show that I can work independently as well and be flexible.

I learned that a lot of work gets in restoration projects. In-situ experiments take a lot of physical effort and need a lot of people involved since it requires physically transplanting recruits on rocks from one site to another. I learned that ex-situ experiments require a lot of infrastructure and money. In general, restoration takes a lot of time, money, and effort, which showed me that we need to focus on conservation first so that we don’t need to restore everything.