My WSL Curriculum

Miscellaneous texts and other items for the chapter 'Longo's Adventures at WSL' of my unwritten  biography.

Mire Conservation

In March 1992 I started out at WSL in the Landscape Ecology Department  and immediately became involved in mire conservation which was then one of the major issues.

• Unpublished article about a mire conservation excursion (in German)

TOPOSKOP and DATASKOP

The DATASKOP was my contribution to the conservation effort: A tool to distribute the data of the objects of the national inventories of bogs, fens and mire landscapes.

• Infoblatt article on the inventory of mire landscapes of national importance.

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Swiss National Park

Plant succession studies in the Swiss National Park became a quite unexpected new research feature because, more or less by chance, the department inherited the 'Stüssi data': a large number of repeated relevees on permanent plots in the Swiss National Park – some dating as far back as 1917 (initiated by the great Braun-Blanquet himself). In order to continue the time series, the ancient permanent plots had to be relocated with the help of Stüssi's notes and then properly surveyed with GPS technology. This gave me the opportunity for a few field trips working as an assistant of the surveyor.

• My pictures of the Swiss National Park (2003)
  

Bertil Krüsi proudly presents his book on Succession research.

Forest Edge

The forest edge was along with wetlands a typical field of WSL landscape research in its early days. It was the no man's land between the mighty domains of forestry (i.e. the woods) and agriculture (i.e. the cultivated fields). Stepping into other people's territory has caused many a problem ever since.

The ideal forest edge in pink compared to what was found in Switzerland

• Collected materials for the planned new Forest Edge Key which was never completed
  

•  The old version of the key
  
•  The never completed new version

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Former Research Department Landscape

• Welcome day slide show: a short introduction to landscape research practised at WSL at the time
  

Audit of the Landscape department

The Magnum Opus of the ex-department Landscape – ultimately a result of the audit of the department. After discussing the presentations of the WSL researchers during the audit, the auditors were invited to contribute their views to the articles of this book which were mostly based on the presentations at the audit. So the book presents a view of landscape research that goes beyond WSL. My own contribution The Meaning of 'Landscape' – An Exegesis of Swiss Government Texts is an exception as it is neither based on a presentation at the audit nor has any auditor been a co-author because it is a linguistic study. But it proves the point that the book goes beyond the scope of the audit.