Forestry Experts, Nepalese Discover Inspiration

Early this year Prof. Don Messerschmidt packed his bags and flew to Nepal. Although he's travelled to the Himalayas before, and actually lived there for years, this was the Washington resident's first trip of the year - and his first trip ever with Inspiration.

Prof. Messerschmidt is a forestry consultant on a research assignment for the Nepal-Australia Community Forestry Project. He and his team are working to implement better forestry techniques in the highest forest districts of Nepal. On this trip they used Inspiration for the first time, and it quickly became one of their most useful tools.

Forests in some regions of Nepal are managed by the villagers who live in and around them, in association with the national government. For the regions that employ this "community forestry," it has been an efficient way to sustainably develop forest resources. Prof. Messerschmidt and his team are working to extend this practice into one of Nepal's most delicate regions: the forest districts high in the Himalayas. This summer, Prof. Messerschmidt and his team developed the Community Forestry Project's five-year "course of action" - all with Inspiration.

Prof. Messerschmidt had Inspiration installed on a solar-powered laptop computer he carried into the mountains. Whenever he stopped in the villages overnight or for meals, he set up the computer, and his team members would gather around to discuss their work.

"We used Inspiration ... to short-hand the activities we were observing" in the field, Prof. Messerschmidt said. They took notes on what they'd seen, then reorganized them graphically. "It certainly helped my team and I conceptualize our work, and our findings, especially during the formative parts of the work," he said.

But their most entertaining use for Inspiration, and perhaps its most humanitarian use ever, was "rapport-building with the Himalayan mountain villagers."

"Always, when I set up the computer, ... I found myself surrounded by curious youngsters and adults," Prof. Messerschmidt explained. "They wondered where the power came from - and I'd show them the solar panels, and explain that the energy came from the sun... Then they wanted to see what was on the screen, and for this Inspiration was the best show in town. Its graphical representation was easy to see, and with a few words of explanation (in Nepalese), I could get their undivided attention."

He showed them one of the diagrams he'd created with his team. "They liked the people and the trees, and understood with only a little explanation the boxes, lines and arrows. They saw the people figures as themselves, and the tree as part of the forest high above the villages on the mountain slopes."

Prof. Messerschmidt returned from that successful trip this summer - but he didn't stay long. "I was home briefly in July, but back in Indonesia in August, followed by trips to Washington, D.C., and British Columbia, Canada - always carrying ... Inspiration!"