feature Chinese visitor to Stockbridge Meadows During the autumn of 2012 a Chinese student, Miaolijuan, visited the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit at Cambridge University as a visiting scholar. Melbourn resident Bruce Huett had met her on a visit to Beijing in the summer of 2012 and recognised her interest in conservation issues. The Director of the Unit was able to arrange a visit for her to Cambridge as part of a co-operative arrangement with Beijing Normal University where she is a student in the Interaction Mechanism of Human Activities and Global Change Research Group, a section of the Department of Global Change and Earth System Science (sic). This was a marvellous opportunity for her to develop her research with scholars from several different departments at the University. She attended seminars in a range of disciplines and presented her work in a seminar at the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit. However, despite the fact that her main research area is in China, she said that a trip around several conservation sites in the neighbourhood of Melbourn was one of the highlights of her visit. Although it was a typical cold and slightly wet English day she didn’t want to stop the exploration. She was very impressed with the idea of local conservation groups and the concept of the “Fields in Trust”. She said that this was a brilliant idea as there is now very little green space left in Beijing. She came from a rural area, but had not experienced the idea of people giving up their spare time to aid in conservation of their local environment. She was also very impressed with the support given by the local authorities. Her research involves the remote sensing of the condition of the grasslands in China and Mongolia. This links to some research carried out in Cambridge on social models of managing grassland. An example of her work: spatial and temporal change of NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), temperature and precipitation from 2000 to 2007 in Inner Mongolia. The blue colour means it is increasing and red means it is decreasing. She could probably produce some interesting pictures for Cambridgeshire over the last couple of years! After her trip to Cambridge, and particularly Melbourn, she has become more interested in the human aspects of conservation and is considering adding some visits to the grasslands to interview the nomads and to discover more about how they perceive the management of their livelihoods. Bruce was able to give her links to some of his contacts in this field. She can then add a human dimension to her physical models. Possibly her visit to Melbourn has helped her to expand her horizons. She will be giving some lectures when she gets back to China on these initiatives and Bruce provided her with
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material on his activities with the Stockbridge Meadows Conservation Group, the Mel River Conservation Group and the Melwood Conservation Group. In conjunction with the District Council ecologist Rob Mungovan the tour started with a visit to Stockbridge Meadows where Rob explained the tree planting and management programme and the special habitats for the lizards. We then visited the Mel River and tried to find out if the trout were spawning. We were fortunate to meet the owner of Topcliffe Mill in Meldreth, Ralph Betts, who arranged for her to see the inside of the Mill. This was a very special experience for her as the machinery has been kept in very good condition and offered her the opportunity to get a very clear idea of how ancient English water mills functioned. I had been trying to explain what a Mill was, but seeing the inside gave her a full understanding and she could relate it to smaller water mills in the Chinese countryside. The visit ended with tea at Bruce’s thatched cottage in Rose Lane in Melbourn. She was ecstatic about the charming thatched cottage, but wondered why people would still want to live in houses with grass roofs. She said that in China this would be seen as very old fashioned; everyone in the countryside now wanted a modern look! She carefully took some pictures on her mobile phone to show how primitive we are in England!
