From the 13. to the 21.06.22, two PhD’s of our team completed a summer school in Tramelan in the Bernese Jura. We were around 20 people from countries all over the world such as Vietnam, Georgia, and Ukraine. The first days we participated at various lectures about topics such as interdisciplinarity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdisciplinarity), intersectionality (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality) or positionality (see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standpoint_theory). It was interesting to step out of the comfort zone, leave one’s daily’s scientific work behind and learn new concepts. After acquiring the bases, we interviewed different people in the Jura region. We discussed with politicians, farmers, and rangers to shed light on the Jura conflict as well as the sustainability of tourism and natural resources. It appears that there are different conflicts of interest, which at least partly, could be mitigated by a better communication between the different stakeholders.

All in all, we enjoyed good, and lots of food, the environment of the rural Jura was nice and calm, and the atmosphere amongst the people was great. The new assets help us to tackle the further steps in our quest to study the forest patches in West Africa.