For the morning we
are free to choose our own activity.
We choose lounging on
the veranda and reading. Around us, however, there is constant bustle and
noise. Two boatloads arrive with a clatter of engines, people talking loudly.
One boat leaves again. Something is being sawed somewhere, music drifts from
another direction. A wren sings exuberantly from the edge of the veranda.
Lunch is at noon. Eating makes us sweat again and we have to retreat to the shower once more.
The river highway leads out of the park. Besides all kinds of strange small life forms, what remains in the mind are the trees towering skyward like pillars of the world. Khalil Gibran once wrote that trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, but we cut them down and turn them into paper in order to record our inner emptiness. And yet, when trees are allowed to grow for that long, the forest does not collapse, it only becomes richer.
Every year, however, an area of rainforest larger than the territory of Greece disappears. Forests smaller than a certain area are no longer able to maintain their former environmental conditions, above all, humidity, and once that tipping point is crossed, the rainforest ecosystem collapses. At the current rate of destruction of tropical rainforests, there will not be much left of them by 2050. If the climate were not changing, more logging might be possible; and if there were no logging, the forest could probably tolerate higher temperatures. But we are doing both, warming the climate and cutting the forest down.
This assortment of life in a supposedly “empty land” refuses to be generalized. At least for now, individual fragments are easier to grasp than the whole. The disappearance of those fragments makes the world a poorer place, even if someone becomes rich in the process. It is hard to say whether our own engine noise here and the generator rattling in the forest are good or bad. Local people have work and things to do, and the community can rent out motorboats.
We stop at the local field station of Mossy Earth in the middle of a plot of land I helped to purchase. It used to be cattle pasture and is now being reforested. For the first couple of years the grass around the young trees has to be cut constantly so it does not smother the seedlings. The grass grows quickly, tall and lush. Rainforest does not readily regenerate over large areas like this on its own; instead it tends to turn into savanna. Rope bridges have been built across the road for monkeys and sloths who do not like coming down from the trees. A bird club operates here for local villagers. The community has gained jobs, and hunting has decreased. Camera traps have recorded a jaguar wandering through. The land borders Yasuní National Park, now serving as a buffer zone for it.
At sunset we cross the Napo river. Despite the waterproof bags, all our clothes are damp and warm.
Lunch is at noon. Eating makes us sweat again and we have to retreat to the shower once more.
The river highway leads out of the park. Besides all kinds of strange small life forms, what remains in the mind are the trees towering skyward like pillars of the world. Khalil Gibran once wrote that trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, but we cut them down and turn them into paper in order to record our inner emptiness. And yet, when trees are allowed to grow for that long, the forest does not collapse, it only becomes richer.
Every year, however, an area of rainforest larger than the territory of Greece disappears. Forests smaller than a certain area are no longer able to maintain their former environmental conditions, above all, humidity, and once that tipping point is crossed, the rainforest ecosystem collapses. At the current rate of destruction of tropical rainforests, there will not be much left of them by 2050. If the climate were not changing, more logging might be possible; and if there were no logging, the forest could probably tolerate higher temperatures. But we are doing both, warming the climate and cutting the forest down.
This assortment of life in a supposedly “empty land” refuses to be generalized. At least for now, individual fragments are easier to grasp than the whole. The disappearance of those fragments makes the world a poorer place, even if someone becomes rich in the process. It is hard to say whether our own engine noise here and the generator rattling in the forest are good or bad. Local people have work and things to do, and the community can rent out motorboats.
We stop at the local field station of Mossy Earth in the middle of a plot of land I helped to purchase. It used to be cattle pasture and is now being reforested. For the first couple of years the grass around the young trees has to be cut constantly so it does not smother the seedlings. The grass grows quickly, tall and lush. Rainforest does not readily regenerate over large areas like this on its own; instead it tends to turn into savanna. Rope bridges have been built across the road for monkeys and sloths who do not like coming down from the trees. A bird club operates here for local villagers. The community has gained jobs, and hunting has decreased. Camera traps have recorded a jaguar wandering through. The land borders Yasuní National Park, now serving as a buffer zone for it.
At sunset we cross the Napo river. Despite the waterproof bags, all our clothes are damp and warm.
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