{"id":1206,"date":"2018-05-22T13:42:26","date_gmt":"2018-05-22T12:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.creamontblanc.org?p=1206"},"modified":"2022-12-16T10:59:09","modified_gmt":"2022-12-16T09:59:09","slug":"2017-a-successful-year-for-crea-mont-blanc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.creamontblanc.org?p=1193","title":{"rendered":"2017 : A Successful Year for CREA Mont-Blanc"},"content":{"rendered":"

As spring weather was beginning to get a foothold in the Chamonix Valley, the CREA Mont-Blanc was joined by members, partners and friends for its annual meeting at the Mont-Blanc Base Camp.\u00a0 Around 40 people were present to celebrate 2017\u2019s successes (including the reception of the United Nations Momentum for Change Award) and to learn about new opportunities to get involved in studying the Mont-Blanc massif\u2019s biodiversity.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Members of the CREA Mont-Blanc team and Board of Directors durign the 2018 General Assembly\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a9 ABajeux<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

2017 was a full year for CREA Mont-Blanc. \u00a0With pride in his voice, CREA Mont-Blanc Vice President, Richard Raquillet opened the General Assembly reminding the audience that CREA Mont-Blanc received recognition from the United Nations.\u00a0\u00a0 The Momentum for Change prize, awarded at the COP 23 in November, recognized the innovative technological and human partnership between CREA Mont-Blanc and the telecommunications company Orange.\u00a0 The CLIMB project (Climate Change Impacts on Mountain Biodiversity) was created to allow for more efficient and effective monitoring of how mountain environments are responding to climate change.<\/p>\n

14 years of experience and innovation in citizen science<\/h2>\n

The major theme of the evening was citizen science, one of CREA Mont-Blanc\u2019s principal activities.\u00a0 Program Director, Irene Alvarez presented the different citizen science projects (TourScience, Phenoclim, and the Mont Blanc Atlas) that CREA Mont-Blanc uses to bridge the gaps between citizens, regional actors and research.\u00a0 Constantly innovating and trying new things, the CREA Mont-Blanc team challenges itself to move beyond classic techniques for implicating the public.<\/p>\n

Connecting CREA Mont-Blanc with American universities<\/h3>\n

Climate Science in Chamonix<\/em>, a new initiative aiming to bring American university professors and students to Chamonix to learn fieldwork techniques and how to independently design experiments and collect data.\u00a0 The CREA Mont-Blanc team is excited to discover how this new collaborative multidisciplinary approach will offer a fresh perspective on their work.<\/p>\n

Collaborative marathons: a new kind of citizen science<\/h3>\n

In October of 2017, CREA Mont-Blanc hosted another exciting event: the Mont Blanc Lab, a collaborative marathon bringing together 50 people from diverse backgrounds to develop prototypes of new ways to share knowledge and highlight the area\u2019s natural heritage.\u00a0 Over the course of 3 days, 6 teams produced six prototypes.\u00a0 Innovative and interactive, their proposals mixed physical creations (board games, kiosks, and interpretive paths) with digital innovations (virtual reality and mobile applications).\u00a0\u00a0 CREA Mont-Blanc tried its hand at this new form of citizen science in which people get involved not only in data collection but also in the sharing of data and results, and the result was a success!\u00a0 The participant\u2019s creations were presented to the community and local decision-makers who attended the event\u2019s public restitution.\u00a0 A second edition is scheduled for the fall of 2019.<\/p>\n

Exciting research going on at CREA Mont-Blanc<\/h2>\n
\"Une
40 people attended the General Assembly and learned about Anne Delestrade’s 30 years of research on the Alpine chough\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a9 CMader<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Citizen science research and data<\/h3>\n

Marjorie Bison gave a presentation of Phenoclim, a program to which citizens have contributed nearly 33,000 observations since its launch in 2004.\u00a0\u00a0 The program aims to improve our understanding ecosystem functioning through careful observation of seasonal phenomena and the consequences of climatic variation on the environment in different mountain ranges.\u00a0 Phenoclim groups together data collected through a variety of different fields including phenology (seasonal flora and fauna phenomena), climatology (temperature variation) and even social sciences (Marjorie recently published a study on the reliability of citizen science data).<\/p>\n

Using satellite imagery for ecology<\/h3>\n

Brad Carlson presented his research using the Sentinel 2 satellite data to monitor vegetation and snow cover in the Mont-Blanc massif. \u00a0The satellite is equipped with advanced technology that allows researchers to precisely analyze the different characteristics of an area (rock, water, snow, vegetation, etc.) and monitor the inter-annual variation and changes.\u00a0 By combining these high-tech measurements with field observations, Brad is able to examine the effects of climatic variations on mountain environments.\u00a0 For example, this technique allowed us to determine that, among the wetlands studied by CREA Mont-Blanc, 40% dried out entirely during the summer of 2017, compared with 33% in 2016, with obvious consequences on the surrounding flora and fauna.<\/p>\n

30 years of data on the Alpine chough<\/h3>\n

The final subject at this year\u2019s General Assembly presented by CREA Mont-Blanc\u2019s founder and director, Anne Delestrate, who shared her 30 years of work on one of the mountain\u2019s most recognizable species: the Alpine chough.\u00a0 Her research has included studies of the chough\u2019s distribution, social behavior, reproduction, and survival rates.\u00a0 A thesis is currently being completed on survival rates and a corresponding article will soon be published.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Volunteer with CREA Mont-Blanc!<\/h2>\n

To kick off the informal part of the evening and potluck buffet, Colin Van Reeth, the newest addition to the team, launched a call for volunteers to join the team for a wide variety of activities from collecting observations to installing monitoring equipment to participating in data sharing and awareness campaigns.\u00a0 CREA Mont-Blanc is always looking for mountain lovers interested in contributing to their research on biodiversity and climate change. It is thanks to the participation of volunteers and partner\u2019s that 2017 will go down as one of CREA Mont-Blanc\u2019s most successful years on the books.<\/p>\n

Become a volunteer!<\/a>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Written by Lisa Muller et Charlotte Mader<\/p>\n

\n

For more information\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Learn about all of CREA Mont-Blanc’s acitivities in the\u00a02017 Annual Report<\/a>\u00a0(in French)<\/p>\n

Stay up to day on our research and events when you sign up for our newsletter<\/a>\u00a0(in French).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As spring weather was beginning to get a foothold in the Chamonix Valley, the CREA Mont-Blanc was joined by members, partners and friends for its annual meeting at the Mont-Blanc Base Camp.\u00a0 Around 40 people were present to celebrate 2017\u2019s … Lire la suite\u00ad\u00ad<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vie-association"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.creamontblanc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.creamontblanc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.creamontblanc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.creamontblanc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.creamontblanc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1206"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.creamontblanc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1208,"href":"https:\/\/blog.creamontblanc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206\/revisions\/1208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.creamontblanc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.creamontblanc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.creamontblanc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.creamontblanc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}