Ok, so it's not birding and it's not related to cp but, since we were on the subject of Peru.... -----Original Message----- From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of [log in to unmask] Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2000 5:16 PM To: science-subscribers Subject: Amazon.com Delivers Sy Montgomery Greetings from Amazon.com Delivers Outdoors & Nature and Science Sy Montgomery has a thing for the world's mysterious river dolphins--particularly the oddly humanlike "bufeo colorado," or pink dolphin, that is believed to come ashore in the guise of a stranger and lure the unsuspecting to a fantastic watery underworld. While traveling through the Amazon rain forest to feed this fascination and research what would become "Journey of the Pink Dolphins," Montgomery visited a number of so-called nature reserves. She discovered that such reserves, charged with the responsibility of conserving the Amazon basin's staggering yet imperiled biodiversity, are frequently refuges on paper only. Peru's Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo Reserve is different, however, and it just might be the model for the future that ensures the survival of the basin's habitat, its life forms, and the local cultures that hunt and fish in the region. The book featured in this e-mail is "Journey of the Pink Dolphins: An Amazon Quest," by Sy Montgomery. You can find more information about it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/068484558X/ref=ad_b_sn_2 ****** Amazon Forever: On a quest for meaningful conservation in the last great tropical forests At the edge of the Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo Reserve in northeastern Peru, as the waters narrow, the forest quickens. The air, hot as breath, shudders with the calls of parakeets and the glittering wings of dragonflies. Partially submerged trees trail curtains of vines. Strangler figs flow over their hosts like melting candles; ferns uncoil, curling and twisting like dancers. Trees hang heavy with the nests of ants, wasps, termites, birds. Unlike most of the Amazon, the Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo area has been a rain forest since before the river itself was born. Based on fossil evidence, paleogeographers believe that during the last 50,000 years the Amazon basin became cooler and drier at least four times, changing most of its rain forests to savannas. Fewer than a dozen small patches in the entire Amazon basin have remained warm and wet enough to preserve the ancient lineages that thrived in the lush, steamy world of the Eocene. This is one of them. The reserve and its surroundings are astonishingly rich in wildlife, with more species of primates (14) and rodents (26) than any other area in South America. Its creatures include the rare red uakari, an auburn-coated monkey whose bright-red face looks like a sunburned tourist; the hoatzin, a bird with a loose crest of orange feathers above a blue face, whose young, like the first dinosaur-birds, grow claws on the wings; catfish clad in plates of bony armor, like the giant fish of Devonian seas; and the primitive, melon-headed, long-snouted pink whales here called "bufeo colorado," or the ruddy dolphin--the elusive pink dolphins of the Amazon who are said to change into human form and seduce both men and women at the dances the river people hold--the subject of the book whose research brought me to this place. "There's never been a botanist in here," Greg Neise, the charismatic young president of Rainforest Conservation Fund, yelled at me over the noise of our canoe's motor. The Chicago-based Fund has supported the reserve since its inception in 1991. "Who knows how many new species we're looking at!" Greg called. Actually, he told me later, Al Gentry, the leading expert on Latin American botany, had come here shortly before he was killed in a 1993 plane crash in Ecuador, and found the place extraordinary: there were plants here not known in Peru. Ornithologist Ted Parker had the same reaction about the birds; more than 700 species have been recorded on these 800,000 acres, and many of them are found nowhere else in Peru. Though there are larger reserves in Peru, none is more pristine. Unfortunately, many South American reserves are protected on paper only. When it comes to conservation, developing-country governments often do not obey, much less enforce, their own laws. Cattle ranching, oil drilling, clear-cut logging, commercial fishing, and coca farming are not unusual inside the borders of so-called nature reserves. But not at Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo, because it is protected by the very people who depend on its resources. The local people are key elements, and to a large extent the very authors, of its maverick management plan. "Where is the reserve? Are we in the reserve?" I kept yelling to Greg over the motor. He laughed. And then he yelled back, "Someone else who came here said 'I went to your reserve and didn't see any conservation work going on--it's just pure forest.' And I said, 'Exactly!'" No sign announced the boundaries of the reserve. No guard stood watch as we entered--just a pygmy marmoset, a tiny primate clinging with orange hands to a spine-covered chambira palm, its ringed, tawny tail hanging down like a lizard's. Rainforest Conservation Fund does not finance forest guards, nor does it staff an office in Chicago. And that, according to Jim Penn, who has worked, with dogged dedication, as an agroforester for more than 10 years in this reserve, and who first proposed financing the Reserve to RCF, is a good thing. "What you think conservation is in the States doesn't work here," he said. In fact, most conservation schemes in South America backfire horrendously. Park guards often turn to poaching themselves. Ecotourism seldom protects land--unlike the sole lodge at the edge of this reserve, operated by Amazonia Expeditions, where the staff is full-time and paid year-round. At most lodges, the support staff are paid only during the busy season. The rest of the time, to supplement their income, they often work for logging operations and poach game to eat and sell at the market. To the local people at Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo, Penn said, conservation is almost a dirty word--one that means gringo scientists and bureaucrats telling local people what they can and can't do, for reasons that make no sense. And that's why, instead of implementing a conventional conservation scheme, Penn asked the Rainforest Conservation Fund to secure this land's protection by supporting the people's old ways of guarding it. And, like so many of the miracles I witnessed on my dolphin-led odyssey through the Amazon Rainforest, these ways don't look or sound like anything you would normally expect. To learn more about Rainforest Conservation Fund, you can visit their Web site: http://www.rainforestconservation.org --Sy Montgomery writes a nature column for "The Boston Globe," is a commentator for National Public Radio's "Living on Earth," and is the author of five books, including "Walking with the Great Apes: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Birute Galdikas." ****** You'll find more great titles on Conservation at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse-books/-/290062/ref=ad_b_sn_2 ****** To become a new Amazon.com Delivers subscriber, or to sign up for additional categories, visit http://www.amazon.com/delivers ****** To unsubscribe from Amazon.com Delivers Science and Nature, please visit your Amazon.com Subscriptions page. http://www.amazon.com/subscriptions This e-mail was sent to [log in to unmask] Copyright 2000 Amazon.com, Inc. All rights reserved.