According to the US Department of Agriculture honey bees alone pollinate 80% of all flowering plants. Their pollination of over 130 different species of vegetables and fruits means that these tiny creatures have a huge role in global food production. Their precipitous population decline should send shock waves throughout the world. That’s why every effort to protect … Read more
The Amazon rainforest makes its own rain. And less forest means less precipitation. As forest destruction affects climate and vice versa, the concern is that the Amazon will be caught up in a set of feedback loops that could dramatically speed up the pace of forest loss and degradation and bring the Amazon to a point of no return. This ‘tipping point’ may occur when a certain percentage of Amazonian habitat dies, after which it will all turn into a savanna-like ecosystem.
Travel is important because it connects us, and without connection, we’d remain unable to understand the full impact of the big picture. We can objectively understand that the climate crisis is scary and terrible… but seeing it firsthand is different.
Families in Amazonia certainly rely on their home gardens for much of their food, and take surplus to markets in Iquitos or Puerto Maldonado, for example, to supplement their income and to purchase items not grown at home. Foraging, though, in the forest is also a source of food be it meat from hunting or … Read more
Coca consumption has its origins in the ancient Inca tradition, but the scale at which it is used now has nothing to do with beautiful rituals anymore. It causes deforestation, contamination and violence.
“Ha! Careful, they’ll try and go up your nose!” I turn and see Jospeh See, an ACEER conservation fellow, covered in bees. As they’re latching onto his hair and covering his macro camera, I can see he is beaming, perfectly in his element. We were in the midst of opening a tree trunk hive to … Read more
Excitement rushes over me as I arrive in Puerto Maldonado, a small city in the state of Madre de Dios, Peru, and the gateway to the southern Peruvian Amazon. Before locating my hostel, I was already seeking adventure. Walking around the town’s plaza you will find numerous locals and small businesses ready to provide a … Read more
The metal bridge in downtown Puerto Maldonado, above the mighty and murky Madre de Dios river, is not just any bridge. This 750-meter long suspension bridge, officially called the ‘Puente Guillermo Billinghurst’ after a Peruvian congressman, was finished in July 2011 and completed the 2600km-long Interoceanic Highway, which runs from the Atlantic Ocean through Brazil … Read more
‘The smell hits you like a train. Burned hair, rotting flesh, and old meat that’s not smoked for flavor but for necessity. Anyone who is solely used to eating western food, would doubt to eat anything there.’ – is how Dr. Brian Griffiths, researcher of hunting traditions and game species in the Peruvian Amazon, describes … Read more
Did you know the Peruvian Amazon rainforest alone occupies a territory larger than that of Ukraine? I did not. That’s a fun fact I dug up from Amazon Watch when researching this blog. That’s not all they have in common. Both are also under attack from autocratic leaders determined to hang onto power. This I … Read more
By Carolyn Keller and Charles Sunday If you live in the U.S., it’s easier than it should be to relegate Native American experience to history. When we do get news about Native American and First Nations communities in North America, post-elementary school narratives – the ones beyond construction paper hats as Thanksgiving rolls around – … Read more
As a novice conservation ecologist I had the adventurous task of monitoring wildlife populations in the Peruvian Amazon. My perspiring students and I would walk in a straight line through pristine rainforest, holding a GPS, binoculars and a datasheet, to record any monkey, jaguar or rat that we encountered. We had research permits to do … Read more
The soils in Amazonia are so notoriously poor in nutrients, that plants have evolved diverse ways of capturing nutrients from dead leaves, stems, bark, fallen fruit and more. So successful are these plants in recycling nutrients that the vast majority of the nutrients in the rainforest are found in the forest biomass, not in the … Read more
Birding in the Amazon is just a wonderful activity! It became one of my favorite activities when I had the opportunity to participate in a bird’s inventory in the Peruvian Amazon, as a field research assistant. I was amazed by the incredible diversity of birds we saw every morning in every study site. I could … Read more
by Vítor da Silva Our canoe hits the embankment of the river, and the 69-year old Maijuna elder, Agapo, pushes me up into the forest as he balances barefoot on his canoe. The forest is thick and there is no path anywhere around me. I wait for Agapo to tie his canoe, and with the … Read more
By Lindsay Schmittle, Gingerly Press My experience on the 2022 ACEER Artist Residency along the Sucusari River Basin deep in the Amazon Rainforest of Peru was definitely not your average artist residency experience. While this was my first true artist residency, I know that in most residencies, artists tend to spend the majority of their … Read more
Translated by Carolyn Keller and Brian Griffiths Is there a light more profound than that which illuminates the soul? I could see it in their looks, in the string of smiles from the conversations that brought us together in the wonder of knowing a world where the wildlife has free rein and is constantly transforming … Read more
Click through Slideshow Experiencing the Amazon rainforest was always something that I looked forward to. It was never a matter of if I would pursue research in the Amazon, but rather when I would begin. A frontier of biological diversity, the Amazon has excited me since I was young, and knowledge of its destruction set … Read more
