“You cannot love hardwood and hate softwood”, says Dr. Roy V Rea, just as “you cannot love day and hate night”, “because the equinox is approaching soon”. And the reason he gave for the former is because they belong to the same organism – the earth!! By Dr. Roy’s effective use of humor, I was able to retain information which I will mull over for the next few weeks. The presentation was given in a very simple manner, in a way that all the information could be easily understood (and retained) by people (like me) who don’t know much about forestry and silviculture. “I speak for the trees because they don’t have tongues”, followed by “I speak for the moose because they have tongues but can’t form words” is just one example of the various information pieces in this presentation which made me laugh and delighted me.

I also like that the I was given a little background information by the presenter about himself. This helped gave me a context about the presenter. The thinking behind looking at habitat quantity and quality and not other factors such as parasites (for the research) also helped set a stronger context. The language used was simple (and sometimes in good-to-hear rhyming schemes), sentences short and lots of pictures were used which caught my attention. While this may seem like less work, I think it is more work to tone down a topic with lots of scientific and nuanced content, so that people can retain information, and be interested in a topic. Lots of maps that were very easy to comprehend were used, such as, to show that clear cuts are not where moose want spend time. The fact that moose need varying kinds of trees in their surroundings was easy to understand, as was why they are called the “edge species.” This helped me understand and get information on an animal that I am unfamiliar with pretty quickly. I also liked the pauses taken between sentences in the narration of the presentation. The presentation was a narration, in the form of storytelling, which was an easy-to-digest form of giving information for me.

The suggestion made was very balanced, according to me. It took into consideration other aspects such as the industry, how Canada’s exports of softwood and hardwood get people revenue, and give thousands of people jobs. As an economics as well as environmental studies student, I really appreciated this sense of balance, that I have not come across from too many people in the conservation field. He requests for retention of trees, and understands that logs need to be sold in the market (in a certain amount) but the question put forward is “must we do it everywhere?” and “How to balance biodiversity and economy”. I think that by asking for retention after taking into consideration other aspects and complications is laudable.

The answers to some of the questions that the audience asked were not known by the presenter. And he said so in an honest manner, which I appreciated. The ones that could be answered were explained well. I also liked that he got trees to the room, the sub-alpine which forms 45% of the moose’s food, and passed it around, to give the audience something tangible, related to the topic. Some references used, however, such as ‘Sesame Street’ was an unfamiliar to me.  I would also have liked to know some of the methodology he used for his research in greater detail. I found the method of looking at the number of times a word is used in relation to a topic, in order to emphasize its importance very useful. The humor and the use of simple use of language made this presentation both entertaining and interesting for me.