Greetings from the Amazon! It’s the peak of the dry season here at Finca
Las Piedras, our base of operations in Peru’s Madre de Dios region, and
that means lots of interesting things are happening in the rainforest.
The dry season brings lots of changes—many plants, for instance, are
flowering, getting ready to later produce fruit as heavy rains return in
a few months. The timing of fruiting and flowering is called
‘phenology’, and we have just finished setting up a permanent 1 hectare
plot in which we will monitor this for nearly 200 species of Amazonian
trees. Data gathered from the plot will also allow us to monitor how the
rainforest’s carbon storage changes over time, and how climate change
is impacting tree mortality and recruitment. We have also recently
completed our first full year’s sampling of butterflies in our permanent
monthly trapping study, and ASA staff are now busy trying to tease
patterns from the mountains of data the study has already generated.
Just like for plants, we are interested in the impacts of climate change
and other human disturbances on butterfly populations in our part of
the Amazon. These are just a couple of the many things our team of
researchers is busy with at the moment, all of which are laying an
important foundation for understanding how the Amazon works, how it is
changing, and how we can best protect and restore it.
On the
education front, after a tough couple of years of restrictions due to
Covid-19, schools will soon be resuming in-person classes and we are
thrilled to soon get back into the field with our local children! One
thing that we’re particularly excited about is a new project we’re
launching that will bring more than 80 local students from 10 rural
schools in the local school district to Finca Las Piedras. We’ll work
with the kids to teach them about the rainforest, its plants and
animals, and how they all work together to keep the Amazon healthy. This
will be an important experience for children who have few other
opportunities for hands-on learning, and we expect to make significant
progress in helping to shape their environmental identities. Our hope is
that strong environmental identities will translate to more sustainable
actions among the next generation of rainforest stewards, ensuring both
a healthy environment and local livelihoods long into the future.
As
always, thank you for your support—together we are continuing to have a
huge impact in the Amazon, just when the rainforest and the people who
live here need it the most. We are all so grateful to have you on our
side.
Sincerely,
Geoff and Johana
Tel. (USA) +1 443-445-0994 (Peru) +51 981-699-368
