International Graduate School
MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management
Field Trips
Fieldwork is a significant and well-resourced element of the programme's teaching philosophy and is designed to complement and extend the class room provision. The field and study visits programme is re-tailored each year, so that the destinations listed below are not all visited in any one year, but the programme always involves a short residential trip overseas on which attendance is mandatory.
Field trip destinations in the last five years have included:
- a one-week field study of conservation and the protected area network of Tenerife, one of the most biodiverse areas within the EU;
- a one-day field trip to Stowe and Waddesdon to study the roots of the western conservation movement;
- practical field visits to Wytham woods, site of some of the most significant experiments in field ecology and currently being used to assess the interaction between forests and the global climate system;
- a half-day field trip to Otmoor, a reserve managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, to understand some of the current bird conservation initiatives in the UK;
- a short residential induction field course to the Isle of Purbeck, en route visiting the UK's newest National Park, and focused on heathland conservation and management in Dorset; and
- a field visit to Oostvaardersplassen Nature Reserve, Holland, a fascinating reserve that is leading the way in adaptive ecosystem management, putting the idea of 're-wilding' into practice.