One of the best parts of being a student at IE is the diversity of students that you will encounter in your program. My classmate Maria and I both grew up in the States and we felt compelled to share the most famous of American traditions with our colleagues. It had been a busy week and we were all prepared for a much-needed night off so we gathered at my house for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

We had spent much of our week working on a project that analyzed the relationship between fire occurrence and land cover type on the island of Borneo. Our group was divided into 5 groups of 2 and each group was given data for a given year. Through GIS, we were able to visualize the fire activity depicted by “fire pixels” throughout the island. We then used R to statistically analyze the data. What we found was that there was a much higher occurrence of fires in lowland open field than other types of land cover (as shown by the graph below). Why is fire occurrence so much higher in lowland open fields? While we can’t be sure simply by looking at our data from the project, one likely culprit is the practice of slash and burn, which involves cutting and burning forests/fields in order to create room for crops. These fields are often used to plant oil palm plantations, taking the place of native plants and animal species.

Since we had become so well acquainted with this project, we decided to name our Thanksgiving turkey Borneo. Ironically enough, as we were discussing something about the project, I accidentally forgot that Borneo was in the oven. It turns out, there are also high occurrences scorched turkeys on Thanksgiving. We began our feast by indulging in a Welsh soup, Indonesian fried rice, dumplings, homemade cornbread, 2 varieties of hearty German bread and Venezuelan bread (pan de jamon). Throughout dinner, we shared our frustrations regarding the current environmental situation, but also found comfort in being able to discuss these issues with others who are interested in finding solutions.

For most in the group, this was their first Thanksgiving, but for all of us, this will remain an unforgettable holiday with a turkey named Borneo.

Fire occurences measured by the number of fire pixels on Borneo during 2006