Hello all, 



First of all, I want to introducte myself as a new member of the Wildlabs community.  My name is Iain McNicol and I am the Programme Manager for the Centre for Sustainable Forests and Landscapes based at the University of Edinburgh.  I am an interdisciplinary scientist who has worked on various projects over the years, however my research is focussed on developing new methods for measuring and monitoring forests and woodlands across the globe, principally using drones (LiDAR and multispectral) and satellite data (optical, radar and LiDAR). I am also involved in ongoing projects in Scotland, Kenya and Tanzania which are looking at ways of using eDNA and bioacoustic data to monitor biodiversity at scale.  I am keen to learn more about the what the Wildlabs community is doing, and the share with you progress from our work.



I also wanted to let you know about a project I am working on with the World Resources Institute on evaluating the Global Forest Watch (GFW) initiative, which has been running for over a decade now and provides open access data on forest cover, and forest change.  We are seeking feedback from current and previous users of GFW, and those who have never used it to understand how successful it has been at providing public access to data and analysis about global forest change. This is a great opporunity to help shape the future direction of the programme, so please do complete our online survey if you can.