Early orangutan researcher Galdikas announces new "cruise expedition"

Birute Galdikas with young orangutan. Photo: Irwin Fedriansyah

John Bordsen, travel writer for the Charlotte Observer, published on July 3 a brief interview with Birute Galdikas about her work with the orangutans of Borneo. Decades ago, Galdikas was one of three women sent by famed anthropologist Louis Leakey to research the world's great apes: Jane Goodall pioneered the study of wild chimpanzees and Dian Fossey pursued wild gorillas, both projects in Africa. As a young woman, Galdikas took off to Borneo (tropical island in Southeast Asia) to study the natural behavior of orangutans in their native forests. For a summary of the research of all three woman, see Sy Montgomery's excellent book Walking with the Great Apes.\ Another great read, about a North American journalist's search for Birute Galdikas on Borneo, is A Dark Place in the Jungle by Linda Spalding.

I visited Indonesian wildlife markets; illegal sale of baby orangutans rampant

Fossey was killed on site in Africa (by poachers?), but Goodall and Galdikas have maintained a lifelong commitment to chimps and orangutans, respectively. At some point during her career, Galdikas' forest research morphed into rescuing orphaned orangutans, as the forests of their native islands have been plundered by timber interests and the palm-oil industry. Mother orangutans are often killed when they're in the way of commercial development, in fact are often killed to obtain their offspring. A baby orangutan can bring tens of thousands of dollars in the blackmarket pet trade. I learned that, first hand, while posing as a tourist in the illegal wildlife markets of Jakarta last summer. I was offered a baby orangutan in the Jakarta market of Pramuka, although more often orangutan sales occur in backwoods and sequestered locations to avoid any risk of prosecution. For more about the specifics of my interactions with traders, see my post: Laws flaunted: flourishing pet trade threatens orangutans's survival

I traveled through Borneo and Sumatra last summer investigating...

the conservation efforts for orangutans, whose numbers are dwindling as their habitat disappears. I was astonished at how much of the tropical forests of these lush islands is already gone. So sad, because these Southeast Asian islands have been among the most bio-diverse sites in the world. More posts, and pix, from my travels in orangutan habitat:
My search for wild orangutans on Borneo and Sumatra
Hunting may threaten orangutans even more than habitat loss

Galdikas' 10-day expedition for tourists next year

Anyway, early next year, Galdikas will lead a 10-day "Indonesian Interlude" cruise expedition to two of her research stations in Borneo (see Orangutan.Travel.or Fronteirs.Elegant Journeys to learn more about the trips).

Protecting apes and other wildlife

Trapping, shooting, eating, and selling wildlife are long-held traditions in forest cultures. Solutions must involve enforcement of local laws protecting forests and wildlife, and enforcement of penalties. That's something that's not happening right now in developing countries. But it must if orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, tigers, and thousands of other species are to survive this century. Many organizations are busy, on site, trying to make it happen. In Southeast Asia, TRAFFIC and Greenpeace are working hard to turn things around.

What can you do?

Support some of the NGOs who are making the most progress in protecting orangutans from illegal hunting and trade and who are fighting to protect Southeast Asia's remaining forests from destruction. And working to rehabilitate orphaned orangutans.

These are some of the best:

Orangutan Outreach
Greenpeace International
TRAFFIC: the wildlife trade monitoring network
ProFauna (an Indonesian NGO that helped me in Jakarta by providing a local guide to go with me to the markets)
Sumatran Orangutan Society
World Wildlife
ForestEthics
Rainforest Action Network
Earth Pulp and Paper

Some of my previous posts on conservation in Southeast Asia:

Orangutans dwindle as Borneo, Sumatra converted to palm-oil plantations August 3, 2010

My search for a wild orangutan in Borneo and Sumatra August 16, 2010

Laws flaunted: flourishing pet trade threatens orangutans' survival August 23, 2010

Wildlife trade rivals drug trade in profits September 20, 2010
Tiger in a suitcase - an isolated incident? September 26, 2010
Why use toilet paper? No need to flush our forests October 11, 2010

Some of my previous posts on wildlife smuggling around the world:

Monkeys and parrots pouring from the jungle. September, 2008
The U.S. imports 20,000 primates per year. February, 2010
The great apes are losing ground. March, 2010

Some of my previous posts about deforestation:

Orangutans dwindle as Borneo, Sumatra converted to palm-oil plantations August 3, 2010
Wild tigers are in trouble October 4, 2010
Plush toilet paper flushes old forests. September 26, 2009

Keywords: orangutan orphans orangutans poaching Borneo Sumatra Galdikas 10 day expedition Indonesian Interlude Camp Leakey deforestation palm-oil industry

Africa's big mammal populations drop 59% in 40 years!

African elephants in Kruger National Park. Photo: Sally Kneidel

Just saw a distressing news item.  In an interview published 1/27/11, scientist Ian Craigie says populations of big mammals in Africa have decreased 59% in 40 years. And those figures are only from protected areas such as national parks. If unprotected areas were included in the study, the percent would probably be much higher.  Craigie is a zoologist (University of Cambridge) and former employee of South Africa National Parks.

Craigie says the primary causes of the decline are agriculture, hunting and the bushmeat trade. But all are due to human actions and Africa's population explosion. Africa's human population has increased 5-fold since WWII. The additional human population has moved into cultivated areas that were previously wildlife habitat, leading to widespread habitat destruction.

I might add (my words, not Craigie's) that deforestation for agriculture and timber has increased access to previously secluded or inaccessible wildlife.  Modern weaponry has also increased the ease of killing large numbers of animals for commercial trade as bushmeat or traditional medicine.

White rhino in an African national park. Photo: Sally Kneidel

Craigie says that Southern Africa is better off than West Africa or East Africa because the parks in Southern Africa have better funding and the human population is less dense.

West Africa has the most serious wildlife problem of the three regions because of the strong tradition of hunting for bushmeat, the countries are poorer, and the human population density is high.

What's the solution? Increase funding for programs to help communities develop livelihoods that depend on protecting wildlife (such as ecotourism) rather than over-harvesting and destroying their greatest resource (wildlife) and their greatest potential for income.  These are my words, not Craigie's.  Americans alone spend 12 billion dollars per year on ecotourism in Africa.

Keywords: Africa wildlife big mammals elephants rhinos poaching hunting bushmeat population growth deforestation habitat loss 59% loss in 40 years Ian Craigie

 

Why use toilet paper? No need to flush our forests

This post now on the syndicated BasilandSpice and on Google News.

Toilet in Malaysia with personal sprayer instead of toilet paper. Photo by Sally Kneidel

We're facing mass wildlife extinctions this century. One big reason: the human population explosion and resulting habitat loss.

You might be surprised to learn how our personal hygiene choices affect wildlife-habitat loss. I was.

Americans flush 54 million trees per year. We're #1!
According to the WWF, almost 270,000 trees are either dumped in landfills or flushed every single day.  About 10% of that total is toilet paper.  Since Americans lead the pack in resource consumption, it's no surprise that we also use more toilet paper than anyone else.  In 2005, North American consumption of toilet paper was 23 kg per capita - 6 times more than the world average of 3.8 kg per capita. Africa had the lowest use in 2005, at 0.4 kg per capita.

Trees on their way to pulp mills or sawmills. Photo by Sally Kneidel

Trees of the Amazon, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Northwest and the southeastern US have been targeted by the pulp and timber industry for decades, but now the boreal forests of Russia, Alaska, Canada, and Scandinavia face the growing threat of chainsaws. According to an online magazine World Science, these boreal forests are 1/3 of the world's remaining forested area and 1/3 of the world's stored carbon. Yet the NGO Forest Ethics reports that Canada's old-growth and intact forests are being logged at a rate of 5 acres/minute, 24/7.

China plans to drape itself in tree plantations for paper
North America's rate of toilet paper consumption is stable, but the rate is increasing almost everywhere else, as developing countries aspire to Western ways. Between 1990 and 2003, China's consumption of toilet paper grew by 11%.  China is projected to become the fastest-growing consumer of all paper products, including toilet paper, and will soon lead the world in paper production as well.  Unfortunately most of China's future paper will come from tree plantations. I say unfortunately because tree plantations are generally non-native monocultures, managed with pesticides and consequently devoid of other plants and wildlife. They are biodiversity deserts. China's "Great Green Wall" initiative aims to blanket the country with tree plantations, covering 42% of China's landmass by the year 2050 with tree species that will produce usable fibers.  Many of those trees will be planted in semi-desert areas where they will deplete already-dwindling water supplies.

 

Great choice for toilet paper, 90% post-consumer-recycled. Photo by Sally Kneidel

Solution #1: Post-consumer recycled paper
Toilet paper can easily be made from at least 90% post-consumer recycled paper. Most companies just don't bother to do it, apparently. Kimberley-Clark is the largest tissue manufacturer in the world. Their products are sold in 150 countries and their tissue is used by almost 20% of the world's population every day.  With so large a market, KC could save a great many forest habitats by making their products with recycled paper. Yet, according to Noelle Robbins' excellent research for Worldwatch, Kimberley-Clark claims there is no advantage to using recycled paper. And so their tissue is made from virgin wood fibers. KC is not alone. There's little effort among toilet paper companies to change consumer preferences to more forest-friendly products.

Still, consumers can buy toilet paper made from recycled paper.Marcal makes tissue from recycled office paper, magazines and paper from residential recycle bins.  Tim Spring, CEO of Marcal, says "Sixty percent of all paper ends up in landfills....We throw away enough paper to make toilet paper for a lifetime."  According to Marcal's website, the company has saved 22 million trees since 2000 by using recycled paper.

My local supermarket does not carry Marcal.  They do however carry toilet tissue called "Green Forest" manufactured by Planet Inc., in Victoria, B.C., Canada.  The package says that it is "Minimum 90% post-consumer recycled content."   If you're looking for recycled, the words "post-consumer" are important.  Because manufacturers can and do claim "recycled" when all they've done is trim the uneven ends off their newly manufactured paper and throw the ends back into the vat of wood pulp to be stirred up and rolled flat again. Whereas "post-consumer recycled" (PCR) means that the paper was previously used by a consumer, as office paper or newspaper or whatever.(Toilet paper is the only paper that cannot be recycled, after use, into new paper.)

Great online guide to forest-friendly toilet paper
The Natural Resources Defense Council has a great Shopper's Guide to Home Tissue Products that lists the percent post-consumer-recycled content of 10 to 19 brands in each category of home tissues (toilet paper, paper towels, napkins, facial tissues) and recommends which brands to avoid altogether (Charmin, Cottonelle, Kleenex, Puffs, Bounty, Viva).  Very useful. I was interested to see that Green Forest is actually the best.  The next-best brands of toilet paper listed are 80% PCR.

Solution #2: We learned in Asia that water works better than paper!
During the time I spent recently in two predominately Muslim countries, I was intrigued by the use of water instead of toilet paper throughout these countries. My husband and I were perplexed at first when we found that almost every bathroom we encountered in Malaysia and Indonesia had a bucket of water with a scoop floating on the water. I'm still not sure exactly what that was for, except that it had to do with the hygiene requirements of Islam. We didn't use the buckets, as we're not Muslim.

Bucket and scoop under faucet, bathroom on Indonesian island of Sumatra.  Photo by Sally Kneidel

But most bathrooms also had a hose coming out of the wall next to the toilet, even if the toilet was the kind where you have to squat over a porcelain hole in the floor.

 

 Toilet with personal sprayer, no paper, at a Singapore restaurant. Photo by Sally Kneidel

Sometimes the hose had a simple nozzle or a nozzle with a squeeze handle, similar to those many Americans have at the kitchen sink. (Photo at top of post shows nozzle with squeeze handle.)

Toilet with hose and simple nozzle in Malaysia. Photo by Sally Kneidel

Bathrooms with hoses generally did not have toilet paper.  It's customary to use the hose and sprayer instead. After a few weeks, we came to prefer the sprayer to paper.  Later, in Tokyo, we saw the ultimate technology in the use of water for personal cleaning - the "Washlet." The toilet itself squirts a stream of aerated clean water on the user (from the underside of the toilet seat at the back) and has a blow-drying system as well!

Sign indicating a Washlet, on a Tokyo bathroom door. Photo by Sally Kneidel

If only the whole world would use water...
Ecologically, using water is a great solution. According to a quotation in the Worldwatch document cited below, the production of each roll of toilet paper uses 37 gallons (140 liters) of water. The average American uses 57 sheets of toilet paper per day, which requires 3.7 gallons of water just for the manufacturing process. Compare this to 0.03 gallons (0.01 liter) per use of the Japanese Washlet. Various hand-held squirt devices are estimated to use from 0.2 to 0.5 liters per toilet visit.

But even if, hypothetically, the squirting-water methods used the same amount of water as the manufacturing of toilet paper, they don't require the harvesting of trees. And the harvesting of trees at a non-renewable rate is the big problem with our reliance on toilet paper. The overharvesting of trees, or deforestation, is destroying wildlife habitats at an unprecedented rate. We've got to stop it within just the next couple of decades, before it's too late for tigers and orangutans and all the other wild and wonderful critters on this planet.

Squirting devices are hygienic too
Personal washing devices are not only more forest-friendly, they're also promoted as hygienic improvements over the rags, leaves, corn cobs, newspapers, and other items used in many developing countries - methods that often contribute to diarrhea and other health problems associated with poor sanitation. The Worldwatch article cited below describes several water-squirters for bathroom hygiene that can be used in areas without plumbing, such as the Tjebbi - a portable plastic bottle.  It's produced by Tjebok Health Care.

Nozzles please
We're having some plumbing work done on a very old house we bought last spring. We plan to install in both bathrooms a hose and nozzle like the ones so prevalent in Southeast Asia. Maybe we'll stop consumption of home tissues (toilet paper, paper towels, paper napkins, facial tissues) altogether. I like that idea.

To learn how you can encourage sustainable forestry practices and protect forest wildlife, check out these NGOs:
Worldwatch Institute

Earth Pulp and Paper

ForestEthics

Natural Resources Defense Council

Greenpeace International

Rainforest Action Network

Dogwood Alliance

TRAFFIC: the wildlife trade monitoring network

A major source for this post:
Noelle Robbins. "Flushing forests." Worldwatch Institute. June 2010.

Some of my previous posts about deforestation:
Orangutans dwindle as Borneo, Sumatra converted to palm-oil plantations
Wild tigers are in trouble
Plush toilet paper flushes old forests.

Key words: toilet paper Worldwatch Institute World Watch Institute deforestation Southeast Asia forest products Noelle Robbins Flushing Forests

Orangutans dwindle as Borneo, Sumatra converted to palm-oil plantations

Text and all photos by Sally Kneidel, PhD.   

 A mother orangutan cradles her baby tenderly, at a forest refuge in Borneo. Photo by Sally Kneidel.

I've wanted to visit Indonesia for years - it has more tropical rain forest than almost any other country. Only Brazil has more. Indonesia is a nation of more than 13,000 islands, including Borneo, Bali, Sumatra, and Java. Although crowded and impoverished, Indonesia is a biodiversity hotspot, home to tigers, sunbears, elephants, rhinos, and best of all, orangutans. The biggest draw for me are the orangutans.

Orangutans were common on Borneo and Sumatra at one time, but their populations are shrinking fast due to massive deforestation. Even in areas where they still survive, orangs are elusive and hard to spot. So when I finally made that trip to southeast Asia a couple of months ago, my hopes of seeing orangutans weren't high.  I had to give it a try, though, before the red-haired apes are all extinct.  I also wanted to understand the challenges to their survival - the forces driving deforestation, and the illegal wildlife trade that's rampant in s.e. Asia.

Poverty and overpopulation are major causes of habitat loss and wildlife poaching in Indonesia - around half the population lives on $2 a day or less. When jobs are scarce, a hungry family can make good money selling timber or trapping wildlife illegally for the pet trade, food, traditional medicines, and research labs. According to Interpol, the trade in wildlife and wildlife parts is the 3rd most lucrative blackmarket in the world, just behind drugs and arms.

I saw plenty of poverty in Indonesia and in Malaysian Borneo (the northern part of the island of Borneo is Malaysia, the southern part is Indonesia).

 

Above, Indonesian children begging for money in the street.  Photo by Sally Kneidel.

Above, a woman fixing dinner for her children in a coastal town in Borneo. The beached boat is their home. Photo by Sally Kneidel.

Indonesia surprised me
Indonesia surprised me in a lot of ways.  I was stunned at the paucity of wild birds in the jungles of Borneo and Sumatra...until I visited the bird and wildlife markets in Jakarta (the capital of Indonesia). Nearly every town in Indonesia has a wildlife market. A shocking number of species are for sale in these markets, both legally and illegally.  Most of the birds for sale, crowded into small cages often without food or clean water, are wild-caught ordinary songbirds, comparable to bluebirds, robins, or chickadees in the U.S.  They aren't birds like zebra finches and parakeets that will breed in captivity. Most vendors in the wildlife markets have a stall or kiosk, but I saw lots of men without stalls just wandering around the markets with a freshly-trapped bird in a small paper bag, or a monkey in their hands, trying desperately to find a buyer. Trying to get me to buy their captive, so they could buy dinner for their families or pay their rent or whatever. It was heartbreaking.

 A baby macaque for sale at Barito wildlife market in Jakarta. Photo by Sally Kneidel.

Orangutan conservation is complicated
I was surprised too at the variety of efforts to both protect and make money off of orangutans.  Often those two efforts conflict.  Ecotourism is definitely a good thing, because if communities can make money catering to tourists who want to trek through the jungle or look at wildlife, then the locals have a financial incentive to preserve the forest and wildlife rather than sell the timber and animals or convert the forest to palm-oil plantations. The conflict stems from the fact that tourists want to see orangutans up close, so they can take pictures. But orangutans and other primates don't normally come close to people unless they expect to be fed.  The problem with feeding is that orangutans, being closely related to humans, can and do easily pick up our diseases, and can transmit those diseases to their entire forest population.  I visited the full range of orangutan-viewing opportunities, from totally wild and never fed, to places where some visitors were able to hold orangutans on their laps.

The palm-oil nightmare
Yet another surprise, for me, was the palm-oil industry. I knew that most of Borneo's forests have been converted to palm-oil plantations. But it didn't really sink in until I flew over the forests of Sumatra, Borneo, and Java and saw that at least 70% of the ground below was palm plantations. Those areas don't support wildlife. And the rain forest that remains is in small fragments, most of which are too small to support breeding  populations of any vertebrates other than rodents and lizards.

Palm-oil plantations stretch to the horizon, as seen from an airplane over Indonesia. Photo by Sally Kneidel.

 An emerging market...is that good?
Indonesia is a big country, almost as broad as the United States. Globally, it ranks 4th in human population, behind China, India, and the U.S.  Not surprisingly, Indonesia has recently been listed as an "emerging market" by Dow Jones and various other financial institutions. Other "emerging markets" include India, China,  Malaysia, Brazil, Peru, South Korea, South Africa, and many others. The fact that Indonesia has been categorized as an emerging market means that it will be attracting even more international investors.  That could be a good thing. But in the case of Indonesia, I imagine it means more extraction industries - international corporations that harvest/destroy the country's national resources and send the profits to international shareholders.  I fear it means that even more of the country's forests will be converted to the lucrative palm-oil plantations.  That scares me to death.  A large number of "charismatic megafauna" species will inch even closer to extinction - the orangs and various other primates, the elephants, rhinos, tigers, sunbears, etc.

Women on the island of Bali, Indonesia, carried back-breaking loads of soil to a construction site for 12 hours a day. Photo by Sally Kneidel.

What's the solution?
In several posts to follow, I'll explore these issues in more detail. I'll tell you everywhere I stayed on my trip, with contact info, and all the orangutan sanctuaries and forests I visited. I'll show you my clandestine pics of the wildlife markets of Jakarta, pics of wild orangs and other primates, as well as the landscapes, the cities, and the beautiful people of Indonesia. And I'll tell you what I learned about orangutan conservation - what's working, what isn't, and what you can do (from home, or as a visitor to Indonesia). I'll review the conservation organizations I learned more about, such as ProFauna Indonesia, BOS (Borneo Orangutan Survival), Traffic, and (SOS) Sumatran Orangutan Society. What does it mean to live on $2 a day? The issues are complex. The future seems challenging for Indonesia's people and daunting for their tropical forests and wildlife....but not hopeless.

Key words:  Asia Borneo orangutans Indonesia palm oil plantations deforestation southeast Asia Sumatra Malaysia ProFauna Pramuka Jakarta $2 a day poverty Bali ecotourism rainforests wildlife trade traditional medicine

Devon discovers illegal scam, rushes to protect forest

Devon Graham of Project Amazonas

My family met Devon Graham in June of 2008 - he's a tropical biologist and president of Project Amazonas, a conservation nonprofit in the Peruvian Amazon. See our previous post about our visit to Iquitos and to two Project Amazonas biological stations on tributaries of the Amazon River. We loved Iquitos - part of its charm is being the biggest city in the world inaccessible by road. But Devon told me recently that this distinction is changing - a new road is underway that will link Iquitos with the Napo River port of Mazan. A road through rainforest brings bad news for rainforest wildlife. The road provides, for commercial interests, access to areas that were previously too remote to be profitable. Loggers, slash-and-burn ranchers, and illegal wildlife traders move in. A new road unleashes an avalanche of forest exploitation and development.

Devon points out that the Amazon is in many ways a frontier. The area lacks adequate law enforcement, so illegal exploitation is commonplace. See our post on the market in Iquitos, where threatened wildlife species are sold for the same price as a couple of mangos. The following is a story of Devon's discovery of attempted theft of rainforest trees along the new road-under-construction. It's a systematic exploitation by logging companies that works because local communities lack the infrastructure to stop it. But this time, maybe it won't work, if Devon has his way.

Here is the story, in Devon's words:

"I’m really starting to regret having decided to check out the new road. What was going to be a quick jaunt has turned into aching thighs, sunburned face, tense arms, hand spasms from gripping too tightly, and a lot of déjà vu of the time I put 10,000 km on a 75 HP Suzuki motorcycle in 5 months – most of it off-road.

The drivers in this story, Ricardo and Luis

But that was in the Peace Corps 20+ years ago, and my body isn’t as tolerant of such punishment any more. The new road between Iquitos and Mazan in the Peruvian Amazon might be new, but it is far from finished.

The new road from Iquitos, under construction

Some sections are 50 feet wide and relatively smooth (apart from grader-tracks), but other, longer sections are definitely of “off-road” quality: deeply rutted, muddy, dusty, blocked by heavy machinery, covered with grasses and brush, composed of curving 20-percent grades, and crossed by drainage channels – sometimes seemingly all at once. At one point the road crosses directly across a soccer field in front of a school, and we zoom though the goal posts. “!Gol!” exclaims Luis, my driver; “doble-gol” I respond, and he chuckles as we bounce along. I wonder what happens when a game is actually in progress. Later on we lose Fernando Rios, the in-country Project Amazonas manager, and his driver Ricardo for a while. When they catch up they explain that they were held up by an ornery cow. “¿La vacita negra?” (“The little black cow?”) Luis asks. They nod. We’d both noticed it staring madly at us as we went past where the road crossed a pasture. I guess a suffering gringo on the back of a roaring motorcycle pushed its bovine brain over the edge. It couldn’t take any more, and I’m getting to the same point. The pasture-lands and farms grade into tall forest on both sides as the ribbon of dirt and mud slides by beneath the wheels, and fourteen kilometers down the road I spot a sign on the side of the road – the first sign we’ve seen on this newest of roads. I breathe a sigh of relief, tell Luis to stop, and stiffly and ungracefully get off the back of the motorcycle. We have arrived.

The sign at the eastern extension of Project Amazonas new land purchase

Fernando and I are on a mission to check out the road access to the newest of the Project Amazonas field sites and forest reserves in Peru. This site is different from the other three that Project Amazonas already operates. It has no river access, but instead is located on a new road between the Peruvian Amazon’s largest city (Iquitos), and the Napo River port city of Mazan. Once that new road is a little less new, and presumably in better condition, there is little doubt that the tall primary forest that covers the hilly upland terrain will soon disappear. In January 2008, we purchased the first two lots of land with funding from Margarita Tours. In February and March, two additional purchases and some creative land-swapping enabled us to double the size of the acquired lands to 84 hectares (208 acres). In the subsequent months, all the survey work and title-work for the 4 parcels we’ve acquired of lands was completed though the Ministry of Agriculture which handles such matters. In July, however, an adjacent land-owner offered to sell his parcel of 24 ha to us as well – acquiring this parcel would put us just two narrow parcels away from the Santa Cruz community’s forest reserve lot of 300 hectares – and so I say yes, we’ll buy it, I’ll get the money one way or another! If we can border the community’s forest reserve, it will create a block of protected forest area of over 600 acres, and open up many possibilities for developing collaborative management of the lands for education, conservation, research, and ecotourism purposes. So we’re there to check out the new parcel, as well as to determine where we’d like to put a caretaker’s house and, in the near future, an educational center. To seal the deal with the landowner, Fernando has given him a used motorcycle and a cash sum from his salary. Tomorrow I’ll pay the landowner the remaining amount and we’ll sign the paperwork for the bill of sale. Both Fernando and I will be reimbursed our personal funds out of a conservation donation from the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey which was made for the express purpose of acquiring the new parcel of land. Perhaps we could have waited until those funds arrived in a week or so, but things can change fast when a new road opens in the Amazon, and we aren’t taking any chances.

Fernando Rios in forest interior at the Santa Cruz site

The sign we’ve reached was installed by Fernando in July at the eastward extension of our new lands. He has another sign ready to install at the western extension border with the road once the pending land sale is completed. I’m so glad to be off the motorcycle that we walk the entire 2 km extension of road frontage of the property. Approximately mid-way along, there is a bend of the road with a nice flat area lacking large trees. Centrally, it drops off gently to the valley bottom, and more steeply on either side to a pair of small creeks. Fernando and I agree that it would be an ideal location for a caretaker’s house and educational center. Patrolling the road frontage would be easy from such a centrally located site (we’re envisioning a regular dirt-bike for the caretaker to use), and a trail network could be started from the same location without having to navigate any immediate steep slopes. As we walk along the road, we notice numerous shungos, (below) the hard, rot-resistant heartwood of long-dead trees of various species bulldozed to the side.

A "shungo" or long-dead tree good for construction instead of living trees

These will serve as excellent material both for fencing the road frontage, as well as for construction. There won’t be any need to cut large living trees for those purposes. Fernando is enthused by the number of large tornillo trees (right and next page) – these are highly valued for boat building purposes and for certain types of construction that require a very dense wood that can resist the rot that results from frequent wetting and drying. I’m more enthused by the number of birds that I can hear in the forest or that are flying across the road. Unfortunately my binoculars are waiting for me at the Madre Selva Biological Station – several hours downriver from Iquitos by boat, and where I’ll be headed in two days.

Before long we reach the border of the lands that Project Amazonas has title to. A narrow cleared line in the understory marks where one parcel of land begins and the other ends. These border lines are the standard means of marking property boundaries in the Amazon. Curiously, however, this border line appears to be freshly cleared, and at the road edge is a wooden post sporting a trio of blue plastic “A’s”.

The mysterious blue "A's"

We puzzle over why the land owner would bother to put in a post and clear the border right before a sale is finalized. Walking down the road to the other edge of the to-be-acquired-parcel, we spot another wooden post with the enigmatic blue “A’s”. Fernando tries to call the land-owner, but cell-phone reception is spotty in this hilly area, and so we continue to wonder. We decide to take the motorcycles a bit further onward to where the Santa Cruz forest reserve lands end and another community’s lands begin. The delineation couldn’t be much more obvious. On one side of the cleared border strip is tall forest, the other side is covered by bananas and plantains, with the odd remnant tree sticking up as if to emphasize the lack of forest cover. The air itself feels hotter. We hop back on the motorcycles and head back toward Mazan – we could have continued on to Iquitos, but that would mean sitting on the back of the motorcycle for twice the distance that we’ve already come. I’m not ready for that – maybe when the road is in better shape, but not today. The trip back doesn’t seem so long – we stop once to watch a troupe of marmosets cross the road, and again to visit a local farm. Then my driver hits a slick spot and we start to fishtail. The fishtail turns into a wipe-out and there is the sound of breaking plastic. We both hop off, unhurt, and upright the motorcycle. Fortunately damage is minimal – just some plastic housing broken, nothing essential. We head on to Mazan again.

A mature rain forest tree, a prime target for illegal loggers, in the Santa Cruz forestry reserve

Once in Mazan, there is good cell coverage again. Fernando makes a series of calls, and eventually we’re in touch with the landowner. The mystery of the triple blue “A’s” begins to unfold. The landowner is surprised, and is not responsible for them. The community of Santa Cruz isn’t responsible either, but they do have more information. The posts were installed two days previously by unknown persons who were marking a “bosque local” (a local forest slated for logging) belonging to the community of Paraiso (Paradise), some 20 km distant on the Napo River. How one community can designate logging lands inside of the titled lands of another community is a mystery to me, but Paradise has designated about 1000 hectares (nearly 2,500 acres) of Santa Cruz land as having timber belonging to Paradise. Community leaders and land-owners in Santa Cruz are upset, and rightfully so, and on Tuesday (5 August) are presenting a formal denunciation in Iquitos at INRENA (the government agency in charge of forestry and natural resources use). Fernando patiently unravels my confusion. He explains that crooked forestry engineers take money from equally crooked logging barons to fabricate official looking studies and documentation giving the loggers the authority to log on lands that don’t lie within any logging concessions, and which may or may not cross into private lands that are somewhat remote from community centers where everyone would know if something was going on. Inspection and enforcement is expensive and sparse, and loggers may move fast, counting on official inertia to allow them to take out high value lumber from an area and be gone before anything can be done. Some landlords don’t actually live on their plots of titled lands, others may agree to accept a small sum of money from the loggers in exchange for not raising a fuss – while such sums may seem like a fair bit of money to a poor landowner in need of ready cash, these payments are a mere fraction of what the timber on the land is actually worth. Bribing of key community officials sometimes helps as well. It really is still a frontier area. Ironically, community leaders in Paradise may not even be aware of their “claim” to the timber of Santa Cruz. Instead they are probably being set up to take the blame and to shield the identity of the true parties responsible. Fernando refers to such fabricated land claims as “títulos fantásmicos” (phantom land titles) that have no legal basis to them, and which count on local people not having the economic resources to fight a well-financed logging scam. It costs money to send a delegation to Iquitos, and many communities simply don’t have the resources. Besides, everyone “knows” that you can’t fight the government, so when loggers show up waving official-looking papers with all the stamps and signatures and backed with plenty of muscle-power, what is a simple land-owner without connections in high places supposed to do? Most just try to make the best of an unjust situation.

Forest creek at the Santa Cruz site – although there was only a couple of inches of water with intermittent deeper pools, at least a half-dozen fish species were present

This time, however, the plot has been caught early before any damage has been done. I instruct Fernando to let the Santa Cruz community leaders know that we’ll help out with transportation expenses for their delegation if needed. The incident also drives home the need to quickly fence the lands that we’ve acquired and to build a caretakers house* so that there is someone on site to keep track of things on a daily basis, and, more importantly, so that everyone else knows that the land is valued, cared for, and not to be messed with! As they say, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Fortunately, I already have a financial commitment from Nature’s Images, Inc., natural history writing and photo company in Texas to fund the fencing of the property, Building a sturdy caretakers house with associated kitchen and bathroom and a water collection system will be around $1,800; monthly salary and benefits for a rotating caretakership (where all community members who wish to participate can do so for three months at a stretch) will be about $175 monthly. This is the fourth time that Project Amazonas has had to face the threat of illegal logging, and so far we’ve “won” three times, thanks to the intervention of local communities and the fast action of our on-the-ground people in Peru. We won’t loose the fourth time, either, and with strong local community support as well as international assistance, we’ll be going 'four for four'.

My butt may be sore, my arms and face burned, but I’m burning hottest inside! There’s forest to be saved and work to do."

Photos and text by Devon Graham, PhD

*If you would like to help protect the new Santa Cruz forest reserve from illegal logging and poaching, here's how:
Project Amazonas needs to raise $175/month to fund a caretaker position at the new forest reserve. The caretaker will assist students and researchers, maintain trails and buildings, and prevent logging and other activities that might damage the mature rainforest at this site. To make a tax-deductible donation (in the USA), please contact Project Amazonas president Devon Graham (mionectes@aol.com) or mail a check to:

Treasurer, Project Amazonas, Inc.

701 E. Commercial Blvd, #200

Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33334, USA

Postscripts by Devon:

On 6 August 2008, thanks to a lot of footwork by Fernando Rios, we finalized the purchase of the adjacent 24 ha (60 acres) from the adjacent landowner, and now have the official title to Lot 77, along with the transfer of title and all other legal papers. We need about $750 to finalize the transfer of title, official survey papers, and notarization fees for Lots 73, 74, 75 and 76 which, when done will give us the single contiguous block of land of 104 ha (260 acres).

5 August 2008: The authorities of Santa Cruz presented the formal denunciation of the logging claim within their community. Project Amazonas helped to cover their transportation costs, and we have a copy of the denunciation. This will now be worked through in the courts, and the forestry engineer and/or logging company responsible will be sanctioned accordingly. There is virtually no chance that the community will lose its case.

1 September 2008: An additional plot of land has become available which would connect our existing 260 acres directly with the Mazan River, giving us a long corridor of protected lands. The asking price is s/10,000 (about US $4,000 including administrative and titling fees). If you would like to fully fund the acquisition of this parcel of land, we would be willing to name the annex as you wished (assuming of course, that you wouldn’t choose an offensive or derogatory name for it!).

At the same time, the Iquitos-Mazan road has undergone further improvements, and is now accessible to 4-wheeled vehicles. At the Iquitos end of the road, extensive land-clearing activity is already underway. This activity will march steadily toward Mazan, so the window of opportunity for acquiring additional tall forest is very limited.

22 September 2008: In October, Peruvian herpetology student Jhon Jairo Lopez began the very first scientific work at the Santa Cruz property - herpetological survey of the area. In December, ornithological, fish and botanical surveys will also begin with the work of Dr. Haven Wiley (UNC) and myself (FIU). Volunteer Nicholas Arms will be assisting with the herpetological work as well. We will be spending the Christmas holidays at the site starting around the 15^th of December. If you would like to participate in survey and other work at the new field site, please contact us as soon as possible.

Project Amazonas, Inc., is a USA-Peruvian non-profit organization which maintains and operates four biological reserves in the Peruvian Amazon. These are open for use by students, researchers, courses and ecotourists. Project Amazonas manages the sites in collaboration with local communities, and also engages in medical, education, and community development activities with isolated communities in the north-eastern Peruvian Amazon. Project Amazonas is registered as a 501(c)3 organization in the state of Florida, and as the Asociación Civil Proyecto Amazonas (as it is formally called) is registered at the national level in the Republic of Peru. For more information, visit www.projectamazonas.com.

Dr. Devon Graham is a tropical biologist who has been involved with Project Amazonas since the fall of 1994, and who became president of the organization in 2000. When not working in the Peruvian Amazon with Project Amazonas, Dr. Graham hosts a variety of ecotours in the Amazon and elsewhere with Margarita Tours, Inc., and also teaches in The Honors College at Florida International University in Miami, Florida. He can be contacted at mionectes@aol.com.

If you’d like to have Devon's previous article "Ancient trees look for love in the Amazon" (Aug 08), contact him at mionectes@aol.com and he will be happy to send it to you.

Devon with a Smoky Jungle Frog

Keywords:: birding Peru Amazon Devon Graham Project Amazonas deforestation logging Iquitos road ecotourism biodiversity

Rosa the Peruvian activist: helping people help the rainforest

A child in the Amazon village of Comandancia.
Photo by Sally Kneidel

I really want to help Rosa. Especially since I'll be helping the rainforest and Amazonian villages at the same time.

We met Rosa Vasquez in Peru in June, when we stayed at her family's hostel in Iquitos, Hospedaje La Pascana. Rosa runs a travel agency at the hostel and she's really good at it. She helped us change a lot of our travel plans after we left the Amazon, giving us great advice for the Andes which I've mentioned in my last 3 posts. I'm very grateful to her for that help. It made a huge difference in our trip.

But Rosa, as we are learning, is a lot more than a travel agent. She's also an environmental activist and humanitarian. I just found out today that she serves on the board of a ACDA, a highly-regarded nonprofit that promotes health and sustainability in Peru. Right now Rosa is focused on five remote villages along a tributary of the Amazon River.

An Amazon home near the village of Yanashi.
Photo by Sally Kneidel

Rosa travels back and forth between the hostel in Iquitos and the five villages. She can't always answer my emails right away - there are no computers or even electricity in these villages. The villages are in the Tamshiyacu Tahuayo Communal Reserve (ACRCTT), a critical area for conservation. The rainforests of the region have a mind-boggling diversity of primates, 16 species!! These 16 species represent every South American primate family. There are few places in the Amazon that have as many as that - maybe no other places, I'm not sure. The primates there include squirrel monkeys, tamarins, capucins, marmosets, night monkeys, saki monkeys....ACK!! I want to go there! Maybe next time....

A monk saki monkey in Peruvian Amazonia.
Photo by Sally Kneidel

Rosa's project is a health fair this September for the 900 people living in these five villages. The health fair will provide not only dental care and basic health care, but also reproductive health care and family planning, services that the villagers are eager to have.

Rosa sent me some info today from ACDA, advertising the health fair. The e-mail pointed out that the Amazon rainforest is the lungs of planet Earth. It said that ACDA is working to reduce the stress of human impact on the rainforest by educating and training local villagers to become stewards and conservationists of the forest, for the benefit of the world as a whole. "The health of the rainforest of this region depends on the health of these villagers who are trained to protect it," says the e-mail.

Children in the Amazon village of Santa Ursula
Photo by Sally Kneidel

Rosa and ACDA are right - the connection between family planning and stewardship is well established. All over the world, smaller families are more likely to be able to provide for all of their children's needs and send their children to school, where they can learn about choices in using natural resources. Right now, many or most Amazonian families rely on logging as their primary income - a practice that pays them very little, is dangerous, and is destroying the rainforest at an accelerating rate. This was something we learned and observed when we were there. Anytime we took our skiff out on the river, we passed local people floating downriver on rafts made of logs they were taking to sawmills. We passed the sawmills too. Sometimes we passed a single man standing on just one huge tree trunk, or a section of it. Just floating down the river to sell the wood. We didn't blame them, I don't mean it that way. They were doing what they felt they need to do to support their families.

A man floating a piece of tree trunk downriver to a sawmill, on a tributary of the Amazon River.
Photo by Sally Kneidel

Not surprisingly, ACDA's health fair is sponsored by the Rainforest Conservation Fund. And by Planned Parenthood South America. Ken and I have promised Rosa $50 for the health fair. Rosa's phone numbers, from the United States,are 011.51.65.236.002 and 011.51.65. 233.466. Her email address is reservas@pascana.com. Call or email her if you'd like to make a donation.  You can also support this project by making a tax-deductible donation to the all-volunteer Rainforest Conservation Fund. Click here for the RCF webpage about how to make a donation.

My post about our trip to the Amazon is here.

All photos and text by Sally Kneidel

Keywords:: ACRCTT Rosa Vasquez ACDA RFA Rainforest Conservation Fund Planned Parenthood South America Peru Amazon logging timber industry sawmills primates tropical deforestation

One African Family Struggles to Survive

Photo courtesy of www.womenaid.org

I want to go to Africa. There is little that I want more, other than the health of my children.

For someone who loves wildlife and is intrigued by cultures different from my own, what destination could be more compelling? The fact that Africa's ecosystems are in serious peril makes me all the more desperate to get there before it's too late. I read yesterday, in an article from Emmanuel Koro of the World Resource Institute, that African conservation areas like Kruger National Park could risk losing up to 60% of their species as a result of the coming climate change.

But ecological changes will impact human communities just as much as the they affect the natural world. The early stages of climate change already exacerbate sub-Saharan Africa's pervasive and increasing poverty, through drought and subsequent crop failure as well as degradation of natural resources.

Poverty is one result of natural resource depletion and degradation, but poverty also causes resource depletion. Some of these causes are obvious, some less so. For example, poverty together with political instability means that social programs to improve options for women are often grossly underfunded. Women without access to education, health care, and employment, and the autonomy those opportunities bring, tend to marry in their teens and have large families. Larger families lead to rapid population growth and contribute to the consumption of natural resources at unsustainable rates. The high rate of HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa also contributes to increased reliance on forest resources.

Poverty feeds habitat destruction; habitat and natural resource depletion feed poverty.

The problems facing sub-Saharan Africa are daunting.

Below, from the World Resource Institute, is a profile of one family's struggle to make a living, to survive, as forest resources dwindle. Their plight is difficult to fathom in the relative comfort of our 2200 sq ft (average) American home. But it puts a face on the challenges of rural life in an impoverished nation with an average income of less than $2 per day.


Fueling Malawi’s Environmental Challenges

by Charles Mkoka

(Blantyre, Malawi, February 2004) At 2:30 in the afternoon the Dyeratu family has just clambered down one of the highest mountains near Blantyre, the commercial capital of Malawi. Idan and Feligasi Dyeratu and their daughter, Gertrude, began the trek up the 1,400 meter-high Mount Michiru at sunrise on empty stomachs. Eight hours later and a little more than half way home, they have stopped to take a rest under a Eucalyptus tree, each burdened with a load of firewood that they carry on top their heads.

As Blantyre has grown in size and population -- almost tripling in the past decade -- the forests that blanketed the two mountains around the city have been under increasing pressure. Already the trees shrouding Ndirande Mountain have been entirely cleared for fuel wood and brick making. Families are now hiking to the forests on Michiru for their fuel.

In Malawi, 93 percent of energy comes from fuel wood. Under this pressure, deforestation is not just an ecological threat; women are negatively affected as well. Traditionally, it is women's work to gather wood for cooking. Increasingly, they have to walk long distances to gather firewood. This has consequences for the entire family: as firewood becomes scarce, the nutritional status of families often declines. Limited supply of fuel and energy forces many families to reduce the number of meals they eat and to prepare food that requires less cooking, which is often less nutritious.

Idan says his family climbs the mountain every Saturday so he can sell the wood in the densely populated township of Chirimba. They purchase loads of firewood from forestry officials that are managing a plantation on Mount Michiru. "The exotic pine plantation is benefiting us a lot," said Idan. "I make a profit of about 400 Kwacha [about US$4] per head load carried down the mountain after buying it at 15 Kwacha from forestry officials."

A recent survey conducted by the Wildlife and Environmental Society of Malawi identified poverty as both a major social problem faced by local people, and as a serious cause of pressure on the environment in Malawi. According to William Chadza, head of the organization's natural resources management program, poverty and lack of resources "lead the people to use available natural resources unsustainably."

Chadza cites charcoal production as an example. Around the country, rural communities are rapidly burning their forestlands to produce charcoal, which is in high demand in cities. To make 50 kilograms of charcoal requires 250 kilograms of wood. The disappearance of forests has resulted in massive soil erosion and siltation in low-lying areas resulting in floods during heavy rains. Increased flooding and siltation not only threatens rural communities, it has disrupted operations at the biggest hydroelectric dam in the country, resulting in power outages.

The UN's 2000 Human Development Report ranks Malawi as one of the 10 poorest countries in the world -- 163 out of 173 nations. About 65 percent of the people live below the poverty line, and 28 percent suffer from "severe poverty."

Malawi has a population of about 12 million, with most of the population living in rural areas. Nearly 85 percent of the population is dependent on agriculture, and in 2002 more than half of those people were not able to produce enough food to feed themselves the entire year.

While the country has taken measures to address poverty -- launching a poverty-monitoring system to inform and oversee poverty related issues -- the rapidly growing population continues to exert pressure on the country's natural resources. Until recently, Malawi was home to more than a million refugees from Mozambique refugees who fled armed conflict in their country a decade ago. Further, an influx of firearms from the conflict has helped poachers finish off elephants in Majete wildlife reserve and the Black Rhino in the Mwabvi Wild reserve.

Like the Dyeratu family many people now earn their living by selling fuel wood and charcoal. Idan says business of selling firewood assists his family to buy necessities like food, soap and salt and supports five of his children, who attend primary school and secondary education. However he is not sure what the future holds, when resource that he collects from Michiru Mountain is exhausted. "If the forest officials stops selling firewood from the mountain, then we have to decide as a family, what we have to do," said Idan. (WRI Features, 730 words)

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Charles Mkoka (cmkoka@mw.loita.com) is a freelance writer based in Malawi and a contributor to WRI Features.

In later blog posts here, you can read how conservation organizations such as The Nature Conservancy in partnership with the African Wildlife Foundation, the Jane Goodall Institute, and the Green Belt Movement are working to develop incentives to help rural Africans protect natural resources in ways that also support their families. The challenge is immense, but the progress is encouraging. Because poverty and resource depletion are so intricately linked, any solution must address both. To be in some way a piece of that solution......what could be more gratifying or more meaningful?

Keywords:: habitat loss Africa povery wildlife Malawi population growth AIDS HIV deforestation resource depletion solutions incentives