I hope you are well. I am very well, infact I dont know how I have managed it but whilst some others have been poorly due to the heat / food / sanitation / bugs / bites, I have faired reasonably well, apart from the initial effects of altitude, that is until today.....today I have the usual travellers you know what! Cant believe it has happened in Quito as opposed to the jungle! Never mind that though, there is far more interesting things to tell you about.....
The volunteering with GVI and the rainforest
We were staying at the GVI camp on the Napo river which on the way there we accessed by canoe. It sits on the Yachana Reserve which was established by an american man who fell in love with Ecuador, moved here and worked for oil companies, became disillusioned and upset at the way the local farming communities were treated so left and set up the reserve so he could give something back to the poor communities. He set up a school on the reserve specifically for children from poor farming communities. The school teaches agriculture, sustainable land use agroscience / engineering and is based on permaculture principles. There are several social enterprises which generate some income including the lodge which is the ecotourism side of things. The local communities in the yachanna area have benefitted in many ways including the development of a clinic in the village where the school is. GVI rent the land from Yachanna to run the volunteer programme and research. The land and GVI camp is on the opposite side of the Napo River which is a tributary of the Amazon, wide and fast flowing with varying currents and depths.
The Camp was as advised, basic. Dormitary style accomodation with cold showers, which despite the heat and humidity I did not get used to. The water for all washing, toilets and drinking was pumped from the local stream. As long as water was filtered, boiled for 10 minutes or chlorinated for 6 hours, it was safe to drink. However after 5 weeks of washing clothes in cold river water, they stunk! All 25 people on camp smelt the same though so it didn´t seem quite as bad. We had to get used to cockroaches of various sizes which were everywhere as you can imagine. With no refrigeration, food storage was interesting. With the heat and humidity everything decomposes so quickly, including your clothes! We ate well al beit a combo of veg, beans, pasta and rice everyday. Ok we were sick of porridge made with water by the end of the 5 weeks and I did miss my daily quota of filter coffees, infact there is a gas shortage in ecuador at the moment so we were limited to 3 hot frinks a day. All of this was all part of the experience though and it is how all the local people live.
After a weeks training and tests we begun the survey work. The schedule was full with small groups going into the forest throughout the day and night every day to survey amphibeans, butterflies, birds and cut trails in preperation for the mammal suveying. The purpose of the ongoing study is to research the effects of a road about 2m wide which now cuts through the reserve. Part of the road cuts through secondary forest but it also cuts through primary forest and it is here where most differences are likely to be found. If the research is significant it will eventually be published and may help to influence future road developments and / their routes through what is mostly already fragmented primary rain forest.
The bird surveys began between 5am and 6am and would include either a fast trek to site for mist netting or a fast trek to several sights for bird counts. Mist netting aims to catch a sample of understorey birds in nets to be identified, weighed etc and tagged. Bird counts were just looking for and listening for birds / bird calls from strategic points in the forest at varying distances from the road.
Amphib surveys were carried out by setting up pitfall traps which had been strategically placed with regard to their distance from the road and were checked daily for any amphibs that had fallen in overnight.
Butterfly surveys consisted of traps strategically placed according to distance from the road and set at varying heights in trees with baite to lure the butterflies in. Any trapped were identified, measured, marked and released.
To prepare for future mammal surveys we had to cut new trails through the forest which again were placed at varying distances from the road. I particularly enjoyes this. A trail of 4 / 5 of us with machettes, scrambling up and down steep slopes cutting through the understorey and marking the new trails. It all sounds easy but the terrain was particularly difficult, steep, slippery, negotiating tree falls, rivers and that´s without noting the heat and humidity!
The future volunteers will be setting sand traps with baite and recording mammal footprints but for my term it was slowly walking the new trails by night and looking for eye shine of mammals, many of which are so secretive and well hidden they are just so hard to see.
Anyway that leads me on nicely to my favourite times in the forest, which as mentioned in my last blog were at night. It really is magical. It is always hot and humid as temperatures are consistant both night and day which is another contributing factor to the huge diversity. The sounds and smells are amazing and for some reason I felt more a part of it when creeping through listening and looking through the darkness by torchlight. Maybe part of the charm was due to my main sense being significantly limited and having to rely on the other senses.
It was the end of the dry season during my visit but when it did rain, it did it in style accompanied by a storm. The thunder booms and shakes the whole forest, the lightening is incredible and the sound of the rain on the tin roofs at camp was immense. If we were in the forest during heavy rain / storm we had to get out quickly and get to the road (which could be 30 - 40 minutes walk away if we were unlucky) to head back to camp as tree falls are common. The soil is so thin, therefore the tree roots are shallow and the canopies are ladened with vines and epiphytes so when the wind is blowing and the rain is falling it is not uncommon atall to hear the snapping sound of timber. Just another moment where one realises how vulnerable the environment makes you. It really is quite an amazing feeling. One night we camped out and slept in Jungle hammocks deep in the primary rainforest. The hammocks take some getting used to as you are completely sealed in to stop the mozzies from feasting on you during the night. I didn´t sleep much! Oh and the hammock did fall down 10 minutes after I had got in it! In fact 3 out of 6 of us fell to the floor that night. Our rucksacks were stored under the hammocks and one of us awoke to a bag full of termites. Lovely!
Another part of the programme took us into the nearby villages to teach English to local children. We had to walk there of course which meant a long trek down the very hot and dusty road to sometimes find that school had been cancelled because there were no teachers! The village schools are very small and may only have one teacher between the 2 classes (infants and primary age roughly). When the children were there it was fun and they seemed to enjoy it. Probably because it was delivered by funny pastey looking gringo´s who seem to come and play games with them. There is a more serious side to it though, with planning and feedback and the hope that it will help the children in their adult lives.
The villages in the rain forest are very poor, the houses no more than wooden huts on stilts and in some cases more than one family lives in one hut. Families can be large and teenage pregnacy is high in the villages. The dogs can look shabby and thin. I did see one small horse/mule being loaded with grain bags to carry back to the farm. The road has probably made the lives of the people so much easier as it links them with main towns via the daily buses. Each family is given a narrow but long strip of land to farm. The lucky ones get a plot near a river / stream, the main source of water. Cocao, Plantain, Yuca, fruit trees and grains seem to be the most common crops grown and a few graze cattle. Harvests can be unpredictable as with any farming but where monocultures exist, the farmer is even more vulnerable. There is some european funding available at the moment which pays the farmers not to farm smaller parts of their land where primary forest remains. I wasn´t sure how I felt about this but in further discussion with GVI staff I was advised that it pays the farmer almoast as much as he would get per year if the land was farmed and doesnot have the associated risks. I am not sure how long the scheme will continue.
The Saturday market which is 15 minutes away by canoe was great fun. Completely different to anything I have seen before. A few huts / stalls mostly selling the same things, for example, chocolate, coffee, milk powder, beans, rice, batteries, writing pads, pens, small bottles of toiletries, some cheap cosmetic and jewellery, beer and terrible wine. A make shift pub and bar and a place where you can buy chicken and rice. The chicken was lean but it all tasted wonderful after beans for so long! The locals use the market as a social event and have a drink, or two, or three! A really nice experience though and GVI staff quite rightly asked us to not all go to one stall but distribute the purchaces so as not to upset anyone. The locals must love the gringo´s, especially when they have been deprived of shops for a week or two!
I will tell you about a short trip to hectors island in the next blog but as you can hopefully see from the above, the last 5 weeks have been busy. The schedule for survey work was packed full and the walking around the forest for houeçrs on end hard but rewarding. It was fantastic to see the lives of the local people and to interact with them. Life on camp was tough at times for many reasons including sharing a small space with 25 people of varting personalities. It was all worth it though x
The volunteering with GVI and the rainforest
We were staying at the GVI camp on the Napo river which on the way there we accessed by canoe. It sits on the Yachana Reserve which was established by an american man who fell in love with Ecuador, moved here and worked for oil companies, became disillusioned and upset at the way the local farming communities were treated so left and set up the reserve so he could give something back to the poor communities. He set up a school on the reserve specifically for children from poor farming communities. The school teaches agriculture, sustainable land use agroscience / engineering and is based on permaculture principles. There are several social enterprises which generate some income including the lodge which is the ecotourism side of things. The local communities in the yachanna area have benefitted in many ways including the development of a clinic in the village where the school is. GVI rent the land from Yachanna to run the volunteer programme and research. The land and GVI camp is on the opposite side of the Napo River which is a tributary of the Amazon, wide and fast flowing with varying currents and depths.
The Camp was as advised, basic. Dormitary style accomodation with cold showers, which despite the heat and humidity I did not get used to. The water for all washing, toilets and drinking was pumped from the local stream. As long as water was filtered, boiled for 10 minutes or chlorinated for 6 hours, it was safe to drink. However after 5 weeks of washing clothes in cold river water, they stunk! All 25 people on camp smelt the same though so it didn´t seem quite as bad. We had to get used to cockroaches of various sizes which were everywhere as you can imagine. With no refrigeration, food storage was interesting. With the heat and humidity everything decomposes so quickly, including your clothes! We ate well al beit a combo of veg, beans, pasta and rice everyday. Ok we were sick of porridge made with water by the end of the 5 weeks and I did miss my daily quota of filter coffees, infact there is a gas shortage in ecuador at the moment so we were limited to 3 hot frinks a day. All of this was all part of the experience though and it is how all the local people live.
After a weeks training and tests we begun the survey work. The schedule was full with small groups going into the forest throughout the day and night every day to survey amphibeans, butterflies, birds and cut trails in preperation for the mammal suveying. The purpose of the ongoing study is to research the effects of a road about 2m wide which now cuts through the reserve. Part of the road cuts through secondary forest but it also cuts through primary forest and it is here where most differences are likely to be found. If the research is significant it will eventually be published and may help to influence future road developments and / their routes through what is mostly already fragmented primary rain forest.
The bird surveys began between 5am and 6am and would include either a fast trek to site for mist netting or a fast trek to several sights for bird counts. Mist netting aims to catch a sample of understorey birds in nets to be identified, weighed etc and tagged. Bird counts were just looking for and listening for birds / bird calls from strategic points in the forest at varying distances from the road.
Amphib surveys were carried out by setting up pitfall traps which had been strategically placed with regard to their distance from the road and were checked daily for any amphibs that had fallen in overnight.
Butterfly surveys consisted of traps strategically placed according to distance from the road and set at varying heights in trees with baite to lure the butterflies in. Any trapped were identified, measured, marked and released.
To prepare for future mammal surveys we had to cut new trails through the forest which again were placed at varying distances from the road. I particularly enjoyes this. A trail of 4 / 5 of us with machettes, scrambling up and down steep slopes cutting through the understorey and marking the new trails. It all sounds easy but the terrain was particularly difficult, steep, slippery, negotiating tree falls, rivers and that´s without noting the heat and humidity!
The future volunteers will be setting sand traps with baite and recording mammal footprints but for my term it was slowly walking the new trails by night and looking for eye shine of mammals, many of which are so secretive and well hidden they are just so hard to see.
Anyway that leads me on nicely to my favourite times in the forest, which as mentioned in my last blog were at night. It really is magical. It is always hot and humid as temperatures are consistant both night and day which is another contributing factor to the huge diversity. The sounds and smells are amazing and for some reason I felt more a part of it when creeping through listening and looking through the darkness by torchlight. Maybe part of the charm was due to my main sense being significantly limited and having to rely on the other senses.
It was the end of the dry season during my visit but when it did rain, it did it in style accompanied by a storm. The thunder booms and shakes the whole forest, the lightening is incredible and the sound of the rain on the tin roofs at camp was immense. If we were in the forest during heavy rain / storm we had to get out quickly and get to the road (which could be 30 - 40 minutes walk away if we were unlucky) to head back to camp as tree falls are common. The soil is so thin, therefore the tree roots are shallow and the canopies are ladened with vines and epiphytes so when the wind is blowing and the rain is falling it is not uncommon atall to hear the snapping sound of timber. Just another moment where one realises how vulnerable the environment makes you. It really is quite an amazing feeling. One night we camped out and slept in Jungle hammocks deep in the primary rainforest. The hammocks take some getting used to as you are completely sealed in to stop the mozzies from feasting on you during the night. I didn´t sleep much! Oh and the hammock did fall down 10 minutes after I had got in it! In fact 3 out of 6 of us fell to the floor that night. Our rucksacks were stored under the hammocks and one of us awoke to a bag full of termites. Lovely!
Another part of the programme took us into the nearby villages to teach English to local children. We had to walk there of course which meant a long trek down the very hot and dusty road to sometimes find that school had been cancelled because there were no teachers! The village schools are very small and may only have one teacher between the 2 classes (infants and primary age roughly). When the children were there it was fun and they seemed to enjoy it. Probably because it was delivered by funny pastey looking gringo´s who seem to come and play games with them. There is a more serious side to it though, with planning and feedback and the hope that it will help the children in their adult lives.
The villages in the rain forest are very poor, the houses no more than wooden huts on stilts and in some cases more than one family lives in one hut. Families can be large and teenage pregnacy is high in the villages. The dogs can look shabby and thin. I did see one small horse/mule being loaded with grain bags to carry back to the farm. The road has probably made the lives of the people so much easier as it links them with main towns via the daily buses. Each family is given a narrow but long strip of land to farm. The lucky ones get a plot near a river / stream, the main source of water. Cocao, Plantain, Yuca, fruit trees and grains seem to be the most common crops grown and a few graze cattle. Harvests can be unpredictable as with any farming but where monocultures exist, the farmer is even more vulnerable. There is some european funding available at the moment which pays the farmers not to farm smaller parts of their land where primary forest remains. I wasn´t sure how I felt about this but in further discussion with GVI staff I was advised that it pays the farmer almoast as much as he would get per year if the land was farmed and doesnot have the associated risks. I am not sure how long the scheme will continue.
The Saturday market which is 15 minutes away by canoe was great fun. Completely different to anything I have seen before. A few huts / stalls mostly selling the same things, for example, chocolate, coffee, milk powder, beans, rice, batteries, writing pads, pens, small bottles of toiletries, some cheap cosmetic and jewellery, beer and terrible wine. A make shift pub and bar and a place where you can buy chicken and rice. The chicken was lean but it all tasted wonderful after beans for so long! The locals use the market as a social event and have a drink, or two, or three! A really nice experience though and GVI staff quite rightly asked us to not all go to one stall but distribute the purchaces so as not to upset anyone. The locals must love the gringo´s, especially when they have been deprived of shops for a week or two!
I will tell you about a short trip to hectors island in the next blog but as you can hopefully see from the above, the last 5 weeks have been busy. The schedule for survey work was packed full and the walking around the forest for houeçrs on end hard but rewarding. It was fantastic to see the lives of the local people and to interact with them. Life on camp was tough at times for many reasons including sharing a small space with 25 people of varting personalities. It was all worth it though x
Now I know what mist netting is! Yay! Not chasing after clouds with a goldfish net then.
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