Science club: oil and paper recycling

Our team aims to make several fun activities with children, encouraging their respect for nature and getting a social awareness to these issues, which are highly important in our actual society.

Cory's shearwater S.O.S

Less than 100 years ago was common hunting hundreds of Cory's Shearwater for different uses in Corvo Island.
At such hard time, hunger forced people to seek alternative food, for example, "Erva do Calhau" (an algae) and "Saramago" (an herb), because they could not cultivate the land during the winter due heavy storms.
The Cory's shearwater were also a food supplement for some people who were forced to learn some biological aspects of this species, such as hatching dates, that allowed to pick up eggs, and the period in which chicks had less fat and more meat. They also learned how to extract the oil from these birds to spread after their tools. Even serving as bait in the local fishery.

Sandra

Two British experts visit Corvo Island

Kevin and Ruth Standring are experts in drafting and designing touristic trails and routes for hikers.
Their mission is to analyze the feasibility of installing four hiking trails for the tourist who visit the island.

Science club in the school!

The project team is actively working with "Mouzinho da Silveira" School conducting activities in Ecology and nature areas. From previous school year, the students work with the Science Club and last week began with transplantation activities of one of the endemic plants: the Azorean Heather.


The children's club were divided into age groups and once again they showed their enthusiasm for this type of action.

The greenhouse is installed in the schoolyard, giving every student the opportunity to accompany the daily growth of the small plants planted.

Regional Government of Azores visited Corvo island

The Regional Government of Azores realized the annually visit to occidental group.

Corvo receives lots of visitors...

Last week the Scientific comission visited Corvo Islands and evaluated the project actions. During the meeting it was discussed in what way the methods used can be improved and how we should proceed to the data treatment.

The visits were very profitable and resulted in various valuable sugestions and ideas to improve the project actions. We managed to visit all the project intervention areas, although the winter days are coming. In between rain and strong winds we were lucky enough to catch some sunny moments to visit the altitude reserve and show the "Caldeirão" to the Comission.


Beside the project team, the meeting counted with the presence of Jaime Ramos (University of Coimbra), Manuel Nogales (CSIC), Steffen Oppel (RSPB), Raquel Ferreira (SRAM) and Joaquim Teodósio (SPEA).

On Monday the strong wind forecast made us fear the worst, but finally the plane managed to land and all our visitors departed. We hope that they manage to come back soon enough and to help us again.

European Commission visits our project!

Last week, three representatives of the European Commission came to Corvo to check the progress and the work done on all the areas on the scope of the LIFE project.
The visit went smoothly and the commission was pleases with the progress of the actions.
Several people attended this formal visit and related meetings, nominately the SPEA team and representatives from all the partner institutions: Frederico Cardigos (Regional Director of Environment), Jorge Cardoso (Island Nature Park Director), Manuel Rita (Mayor of Corvo), Luis Costa (SPEA Executive Director), Iván Ramírez (European Marine Program Coordinator), José Pedro Tavares (RSPB), Pedro Luis Geraldes, Sandra Hervias, Nuno Oliveira and Carlos Silva (project team).
Last night the third project public meeting took place in the Santa Casa da Misericórdia opened to the general public. The session was opened by the Regional Director of Environment and the Executive Director of SPEA, and was we had the nice surprise to see that we had an audience of around 80 persons.

My first day as biologist!!

On Tuesday evening we enjoyed a spectacular opportunity among the citizens of Corvo. SPEA held third public meeting about our project where were announced the actions had been carried out in collaboration with farmers to test rodents eradication procedures. Early results showed the effectiveness of the methodology, however, must be administered by specialized operators. Taking advantage of this event, we gave back to Corvo's children their field books and show them a video of the activity carried out last saturday. We could easily note the great joy of the young guys. The meeting was also attended by the European Commission which had been visiting the village and the project over the last days.

La Paparazza arrived

On Friday morning arrived one more element to our project team.

Maria Vazquez is from Sarria, Lugo Province, and born in 1984, graduated from the University of Granada in Audiovisual Communication, having previously completed her studies in Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Valladolid. She conducted several courses related to photographic and video editing.

Her work will consist in performing audiovisual and photographic reports on the different activities of the project that are currently underway, that will be used for the dissemination of the project.

Over the next six months we will have full coverage of entire project, as well of flora and fauna of Corvo Island. She will be something like a second shadow of project staff people.

Hopefully well be given to Mary around here.

Welcome Javier and Julia

The last two ribs of our team came directly from Spain, more specifically from Madrid. Javier and Julia, or Jamon e Cecina (their nicknames in Corvo), are students of Forestry who came to complete their practical course with us. However they have been very helpful in other activities of the project. Their sympathy has led them to integrate easily in the team and have been very well accepted by everyone in Corvo.