With Malin Høyme, a student of the Master Programme in Development Management at the University of Agder ((UIA) in Kristiansand, Norway, our first Rockhopper Penguin “fledged”. Malin will write her master thesis about ecotourism in the Madidi National Park, Bolivia. The main objective is to analyze the social, economic and environmental aspects of ecotourism in the national park.
The Rockhopper Penguin just recently has been introduced by LT&C as a new membership category, directed at students engaging within their university studies in topics and activities related to the mission of LT&C. They have to meet special criteria and should apply to the head of the LT&C Training and Education Working Group, Sven Åke Bjørke.
Rockhopper penguins are one of the smallest species of penguin in the world. They range from 2.3-2.7 kg where males are larger than females. They breed on the islands of Gough and Tristan de Cunha in the Atlantic Ocean and St. Paul and Manchester in the Indian Ocean. Further around the Cape Horn of South America, the Falklands Island in the southern Atlantic Ocean, and Prince Edward, Marion, Crozet, Kerguelen, Heard, Macquarie, Campbell, Auckland and Antipodes Islands in the southern Indian Ocean, and on Campbell Island in New Zealand. Due to the harsh rocky environment, they cannot slide on their bellies like most penguins, so they hop to get from one place to another (may be symbolic to the challenges our students have…).
