I am Jhonatan Sallo Bravo, I was born in the city of Cusco – Peru, I has studied biology at the Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad, I am interested in studies like the dynamics of populations, distribution of plant species, diversity (however I am open to new experiences). Currently am actively participating in projects about tree communities’ responses to climate change, also I participated in forest restoration projects and some volunteer programs. Some time ago I observed a work about the functional traits in trees from there I was interested in the traits and investigating a little more. I understood that it is a topic to understand the ecology for which a goal that I set out to is understand more about the functional traits of the plants since I know very little about this subject.

By participating in the course I will be able to learn more in detail about the functional traits, which is a topic that helps to understand and predict the ecosystems. Therefore, I am very interested in the course. However, I still have many questions and doubts about the fundamentals, methodologies, analysis among others, therefore, I think that by answering and understanding the above mentioned, as well as being able to generate some idea of research on traits (probably in forest ecosystems), I will have my objective.

Acquiring new knowledge always gives me joy and also generates satisfaction. Besides when this knowledge comes from people with a lot of experience, it becomes much more productive with which I am very excited to participate in the course of functional traits. Another reason why I feel excited is because I will meet new people with whom I will able to interact and learn new concepts.

The local media (television, radio and newspaper) disseminate little information about climate change, I also think that this few information is not always well-founded. So, in my opinion, confusion is generated in relation to the real perspectives on this subject. Not all the population of my country knows exactly about climate change, however, part of the population that knows about this topic, relates the cause of these changes to human activities in countries like USA, China, mainly. Although unfortunately, Peru will be one of the countries that will be severely affected by climate change, and this apparently is understood only by the population that lives outside of the big cities.

In Peru progress has been made in mitigation processes but there is still a lot to be done, a serious action to integrate more local governments (for example, as regards public transport, since it is a source of CO2). Some local governments and civil organizations are addressing this issue, carrying out local projects to raise awareness and be able to face new climate events. However, no more concrete actions on a large scale are yet established. At present, the most common Peruvian proposal is about forest conservation. The Peruvian government is preparing a new law (Ley Marco Cambio Climatico) which is in line with what was proposed at the COP in Paris, therefore this law intends to generate more mitigation and adaptation initiatives to deal with the new environmental variables that will be produced in Peru.