Simon Marijsse, Robert Carrubba, and Lutula Kaminkya The intermittent hum of the outboard motor propelling the packed wooden sloop laden with people and products masks the ever-present gurgling of the river. The current has carried the boat with its passengers and packages for 4 hours along a tributary of the Congo River in the eastern Kivu province. Many traveled by moto- or van- taxi and on foot for at least three days from Bukavu, the border town on Lake Kivu between Rwanda and DR Congo, about 200 kilometers as the crow flies. Most are either merchants or miners. A...
Un projet par / A project by: Robert Carrubba & Cintia Garai / Wildlife Messengers Photographie / Photographs: Robert Carrubba Film: Cintia Garai & Robert Carrubba Ce film et l’article photo ont été réalisés avec le soutien du Rainforest Journalism Fund à travers le Pulitzer Center. This film and the photo-article were made with the support of the Rainforest Journalism Fund through the Pulitzer Center. Ecoguard, Lébon Mabeka Kunafe, from the rapid response team, sits contemplatively on the stump of a tree that was illegally cut down in the 2018 deforestation incident in the high-altitude zone of the park. This...
The wildlife messengers | by George Olah on 31 December 2020 The Tambopata National Reserve has celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2020. However, the integrity of the reserve and the adjacent Bahuaja Sonene National Park are now facing a new kind of threat. When examining satellite maps in detail, the protected area services became aware of traces of strange, longitudinal deforested patches, which proved to be runways for light aircraft! There are more and more reports of low-flying small aircraft, even near to a remote research center. And the river sometimes washes out plastic barrels from the area of...
Films for conservation | by George Olah on 01 November 2020 It was dawn in the southeastern Peruvian Amazon. After an early start, we were heading to a clay lick with nature filmmaker Bertie Gregory in a motorised canoe. The air was humid and still very cold, especially in the headwind of our boat. But we had to hurry as the rainforest was already awakening. We unloaded the film gear to a dry patch of rocky riverbed, a few hundred yards from the clay lick, and launched the drone. The macaws also woke up early and were already on...
Gold-mining with deforestation | by George Olah on 01 September 2020 Biogeographically Peru can be divided into three major units: the deserts along the Pacific coast, the Andean mountain range that forms the backbone of the country, and the Amazon to the east. Most of the waters of the Amazon Basin originate in the Peruvian Andes. These mountains provided the stage for many important South American civilizations, such as the Chavín culture (900–200 BC), the Huari Empire (600–1000 BC), the co-existing Tiwanaku civilization, and finally the Inca empire (1438–1572 AD). The capital of the Inca Empire – or Tawantinsuyu...
Development of research and ecotourism | by George Olah on 01 August 2020 In the depths of the Peruvian Amazon, at the Tambopata Research Center, our radio receiver crackled, and Jesus started to speak in a slightly disturbed voice… No, it was not the apocalypse approaching, Jesus was a biologist colleague of mine from Lima trying to reach me at the research station. He was out in the nearby forest and repeated in his message that there was an accident, Gabriela (also a biologist from Lima and the wife of our project director) was bitten by a venomous snake...
Indigenous tribes, rubber, and clay licks in the Peruvian Amazon | by George Olah on 01 July 2020 “This is your captain speaking, please fasten your seatbelts because we will have a slightly bumpy ride” – I listened to the announcement on board a plane that recently left Cuzco. I did not even have time to unfasten my seatbelt since takeoff, but I pulled it a little tighter now. The city of Cuzco in the Andes mountains was just a short stop for my plane departing from Lima, which was now heading for its final destination, Puerto Maldonado. Also...
Words: Ben Radley Photographs: Robert Carrubba Français au-dessous d’anglais. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo tens of thousands of rural families have experienced a long-term decline in their on-farm subsistence capacity due to government policy, war and demographic pressures. After agriculture, artisanal mining is now the second most important livelihood in the eastern DRC despite the inherent dangers of the work. Between 2013 and 2015, the International Peace Information Service (IPIS) visited 1,615 artisanal mines across the region, recording the presence of 239,700 miners. Around 80 percent of these miners were working in gold mines, and around two-thirds...
We have been in touch with the Indonesian Parrot Project for a while now and today we are thrilled to announce our new collaboration with them for making a conservation documentary about their very important work in Indonesia, and possibly for research as well. The Indonesian Parrot Project (IPP) was founded in 2001 by Dr. Stewart Metz with the mission to help to conserve endangered Indonesian cockatoos through actions both in situ and ex situ. In the past decades they initiated and managed several successful conservation programs. Their most highlighted project protects one of the rarest and most threatened...
The Macaw Project started with a crowdfunding campaign at Indiegogo 3 years ago. Thanks to the initial support of many people, the documentary is getting well known worldwide, participating in film festivals, broadcasted in national TV channels, being translated to 6 languages, and most importantly spreading the word about an important conservation collaboration among researchers, members of native communities, and eco-tourists. Conservation research in the Peruvian Amazon has a much longer history. Researchers from many different fields study the rainforest ecosystem, from the ground level all the way up to the canopy and even higher with remote sensing. Carrying...