Invasive plants workshop: a great success

The latest edition of the workshop INVASIVE PLANTS: ERADICATION, CONTROL AND PREVENTION given by the groups PHRAGMITES and QuéBERCE in November 2014 (Montreal, Quebec) was a great success. No less than 80 people attended the various sessions. Remarquably, a post-workshop satisfaction survey revealed that 100% of the participants would recommend this training. Here are a few of the comments received that reflect the high level of satisfaction (comments have been translated):

“I especially appreciated the professionalism and scientific quality of the instructors, the originality of the methods discussed, and the relevance of the case studies; the fact that the instructors raised reasonable and necessary doubt as to the scientific validity of the data presented, and the presentation of special cases that permitted the discovery of new techniques or offered possible solutions for real-life scenarios.”

“My favorite: the great sensitivity of the instructors regarding the difficulties encountered by the participants, as well as their personalized attention.”

“This workshop gave me more than I had hoped for. The theoretical aspects on the biology of the species are captivating and encourage us to examine field situations under a new light. The sharing of expertise and the critical review of intervention methods permits us not only to better evaluate the actions to take, but also opens our horizons and seeds new ideas. I came away with many new ideas, from eradication and control methods to means of outreach and inventory techniques.”

We also received many suggestions and comments on how to improve the training. We will certainly keep these in mind as we prepare future editions, which will be held in Quebec on September 21, 2015 (giant hogweed), and in Montreal in November 2015 for the other species (to be confirmed).