Yesterday - 9th of June - the long-awaited workshop of Santa Lucía and the University of Sussex finally took place. Online of course.
And what a fantastic event it was. Between 20 and 30 attendees from the UK, USA, Ecuador and a few other countries discussed opportunities in the fields of education and research in the Santa Lucía reserve. The main questions that were discussed were centered around:
(1) Overcoming obstacles on Santa Lucía's road to becoming a field stations for universities around the globe year-round.
(2) Establishing a communication / discussion platform for Santa Lucía and our allies in the research / education world.
(3) Potential for contributions (e.g. work material or virtual classes) of Santa Lucía for biology / ecology classes at the education institutions that took part in the workshop.
Since the number of participants was pretty high we discussed the questions in various groups, so we are still analysing the outcome in order to create work packages and assign priorities. Certainly some ideas that came up would be newland for Santa Lucía, but that won't keep us from trying.
So, thanks to everybody who participated and we of course hope that maybe in a few months we can repeat the event and have a look at the progress!