The Hechter brothers, Ullrich and Heinrich, were part of a delegation from South Africa which was recently invited by the Chinese government for a three-week seminar.
Together with students from Nelson Mandela University, University of Venda and representatives from the forestry workplace, they visited China, as part of the seminar on forestry management and development for South Africa.
The seminar was hosted by the Beijing Forestry University in Beijing.
The purpose of the seminar was to create and strengthen the relationship between China and South Africa with regards to forestry and to find new ways of managing and developing our forests in a sustainable way.
During the seminar, they received lectures on various topics such as the history of Chinese forestry, global information systems in forestry, the use of biomass, information technology in forestry and sustainable forest management.
They travelled to the Fujian province, where they visited some plantations where the Douglas fir species is planted and received an overview of this type of plantation.
They had the opportunity to visit the amazing bamboo city and received an introduction to bamboo plantations, and numerous items made from bamboo were shown to them.
They also got the opportunity to embrace the Chinese culture by sampling different types of food, learning to speak Chinese and visiting a few heritage sites such as The Great Wall of China and The Summer Palace.
In August, Ullrich will be attending the 46th International Student Symposium in Mexico as International Forestry Students’ Association regional representative for Southern Africa.
Source: South Coast Herald
