Saving The Amazon with Google Earth and GPS Mapping
Inside a thatched-roof schoolhouse in Nabekodabadaquiba, a village
deep in Brazil’s Amazon rain forest, Surui Indians and former military
cartographers huddle over the newest weapons in the tribe’s fight for
survival: laptop computers, satellite maps and hand-held global
positioning systems. At one table, Surui illustrators place a sheet of
tracing paper over a satellite ima...
Read More >> |
| |
|
|
|
|
 | Ashaninka ~ Indigenous-led Conservation in Brazil
Deep in the interior of Brazilian Amazon, a logger illegally crosses
the border from Peru and invades Ashaninka tribal land, felling another
ancient mahogany and dragging it toward the river to be floated down to
a truck and headed for international markets.
"For us, if the forest doesn't exist, if the jungle doesn't exist, then
culture doesn't exist," said Moises Piyanko, an ...
Read More >> |
| |
|
|
 | Kampú - Taking the Frog Vaccine
Whether you know it as sapo (toad), vacina do sapo (toad vaccine),
leite do sapo (toad milk), kambô, or kampú - the secretions of the
phyllomedusa bicolor treefrog is used throughout the region of the
Amazon Basin by indigenous peoples, mestizos, and increasingly, by
foreigners.
Read More >> |
| |
|
|
 | Soy - In the Name of Progress
A new soy rush has been kick-started and large-scale farm producers from all over Brazil are flocking to the Amazon in hopes of striking it rich with this golden crop. The link between Amazon destruction and soy expansion is clear, irrefutable, and well documented.
Read More >> |
| |
|
|
 | Many Shades of Green - Soy's Sad Legacy in the Amazon, Part I
Miles of slashed, burned and bulldozed trees cover scorched earth: a mass arboreal grave in front of the ever-shrinking Amazon forest. Smoke thickens the air. June through October is the burning season in Brazil. Emitting two hundred million tons of carbon dioxide each year, the burning of the Amazon rainforest is a major source of greenhouse gases contributing to global warming.
...
Read More >> |
| |
|
|
 | Shamanism in Northwest Amazonia: 4 Part Special Series
Peter Gorman, investigative journalist and veteran traveller to remote regions of the Amazon Basin, reveals the intricate and deadly world of Amazonian shamanism in this four part series. This "primer" on ayahuasca shamanism explores the world of the Master Plant Teachers, the Sacred Purge, Amazonian Sorcerers and Healers.
Read More >> |
| |
|
|
 | The Dugout
Taking an axe to tropical hardwood is an endeavor that commands
attention at the first ringing stroke. And when your footing consists
of a shifting gunwale and a wet tree trunk with water rushing between
them, all the more so. Early one morning, on a jungle creek swollen
past its banks, a old dugout full of men and a few boys circled.
Read More >> |
| |
|
|
 | Amazon's Pororoca - the World's Longest Wave
The Araguari pororoca is the most frightening, and dangerous, of all the Amazonian tidal bores. Feared and revered by the Tupi-Guarani Indians, who called it poroc poroc, or "great destructive noise", the tremendous Araguari pororoca is powerful enough to tear entire trees from the river bank in its fury...and captivating enough to tempt surfers from all over the world to ride its untamed waves....
Read More >> |
| |
|
|
 | Saving the Last Wild Soundscapes
I am listening to the crystal-clear chinking of a tropical frog. In the
distance I hear the clicks of crabs releasing themselves from aerial
roots of trees and dropping into the water. Although I am sitting in my
apartment in San Francisco, this recording by Bernie Krause nearly has
me feeling the steam of a buzzing Costa Rican mangrove swamp.
Read More >> |
| |
|
|
|
|
 | To Catch a Hummingbird
It’s half past seven in an overcast morning in the Ecuadorian cloud forest. The mist is dense, and we are sitting under a plastic tarp wearing thick layers. We start taking the birds out of the cloth bags after the first round to the mist nets.
We have set up
a series of long and almost invisible nets deep inside
the forest, which birds will fly into and get caught. ...
Read More >> |
| |
|
|
|
|
 | The Bigger Picture ~ Socially Responsible Conservation
There is much talk about buying land in Costa Rica and other tropical areas as a positive eco-investment strategy. And because of this, what is happening in places like Costa Rica is that thousands of acres are being bought by foreigners for conservation purposes and taken completely out of production.
Read More >> |
| |
|
|
