Some ideas and inspirations
Inspire Me South America
“Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before”
Quote Source - Dalai Lama
Ecuador - The home of evolution
Rio Mazan - Expedition
in 1987 we took part in the Rio Mazan Expedition to Ecuador, and were members throughout the late 80’s. The Rio Mazan Project was based in Norfolk and jointly in Cuenca Ecuador.
The name comes from the River Mazan and the primary cloud forest that surrounds it.
The report was originally requested by Etapa Cuenca, the local water company who were worried about the silting up of the water treatment plant that used the river to supply water. The solution was quite simple - stop chopping down the trees. It rains (and it rains a lot in a cloud and rain forest) and when it rains the rain washes the soil into the river. However if you have trees - you have an ecosystem - a natural sponge that soaks up the water and gradually releases it - so the soil stays in the ground and the water flows along nicely.
The science isn’t very complicated but the ecosystem is - and it is surprisingly fragile. The soil depth isn’t very much, so if you deforest it doesn't take much wind and rain erosion to get down to rock - and you can’t grow on rocks*. So how does it work?
*Ok so if you lichen and moss you can.
The rain falls - the tree canopy break it up - water is dissipated into all the plants. Bromeliads fill up water, mosses absorb it like a sponge, water seeps into the earth - trees and other plants take it back up into the canopy - it’s all controlled, a result of thousands of years of evolution, and the filtered residual water goes into the river at a controlled flow rate. insects like caddies fly lava and stonefly break down the leaves in the river so it gets an internal clean; too fast a flow and the insects get swept way. It is a symbiotic relationship between the forest the river and the animals that live in it & then we come along.
I really must mention the “chicken frog” at this point in that it is the males who carry the tadpoles in a special pouch and then release them into a bromeliad for a swim and then gather them back up again. It is amazing. It is also one of the few species (seahorses are another) where the male brings up the offspring.
But to end on a happy note - the whole area was saved and became a Bio-Reserve and was expanded, and now provides a safe habitat for a myriad of species - an educational centre for the local people and the water company has a free filtration system courtesy of Mother Nature. Industry - Community, Industry and People pulling together and well done ETAPA.
Hopefully this will inspire you to try some conservation in your home town, or maybe further afield.
Galápagos Islands
We've never been here - but It's on our list.
Having visited Darwins House at Down House - we expected more. We thought it would be crammed with stuffed species, pickled jars of eels and frogs, microscope and test tubes - it's just a house.
It was probably Darwin who popularised the Galápagos with his evolution of the species published in 1859, but when Darwin visited them he considered the Galápagos bleak and ugly, and now people pay thousands of pounds for the privilege to go there.
In reality Darwin wasn’t the founder of evolution - Mother Nature was, any more than someone who discovered a country, it was alway there! He was just one of many working on the same theme, and it was probably the now unheard of Jean Baptiste Lamarck, botanist and zoologist who was one of the first to propose that humans evolved from a lower species* through adaptations over time. *His words.
So next time you are sitting on the train or wherever you happen to be, take a close look at you fellow passengers - these are the elite, the best of the best, the finest that evolution and tens if not hundreds of thousands of years of selective breeding have been able to produce.
Evolution has produced many variations of the human form for example Tibetans are typical short and stocky, and have evolved with wider blood vessels and less haemoglobin so they can use oxygen more efficiently, so forgive me whilst I puff and pant besides you without those evolutionary advantages, and African tribes like the Dinka and Tutsi which have evolved broad flat noses to cool the air before it enters the lungs, tall and rangy to see further, they are all evolutionary strategies, but not always helpful for car and clothing designers.
Evolutionary strategies which had become distinct advantages for survival can quickly become disadvantages, and sadly whole rafts of species have been lost recently due to mans impact, both through habitat loss and global warming. Beak shapes that had evolved to pull apart seeds to feed can mean death if that seed is no longer available and you can’t feed anymore. That USP* that helped your species to thrive can lead to its ultimate downfall.
In many ways I think we are witnessing reverse of evolution, the death and destruction of the specialist and the rise of the generalist - species that have no USP - ones that can adapt - and adapt they must or they will join the millions who couldn’t.
*Unique Selling Point, is a marketing phrase for something that makes you stand out from the crowd.
Evolution in Action
This is the Condor - we saw many of them up on the high paramo in Ecuador, cruising for the next meal - you could sit and watch them all day. They are so graceful in the air, but like a lot of vultures not so clever close up, another product of evolution, so they have no feathers on their heads to avoid the blood and gore of lunch.
We also saw carunculated caracara a colourful and charismatic falcon, which we loved. They seem to spend a lot of time on the ground compared to most falcon species.
During our expedition here we discovered at least 14 endemic species new to science including a new type of harvestman type spider which we found during various insect and fresh water invertebrate collection duties.
This is evolution in action; endemic means they only exist in this area., and they have adapted and evolved to live in this tiny valley. The Rio Mazan Project covered a space approximately 2 by 4 KM and we found 14 species never seen before. Imagine what we have lost with the mass deforestation of the rain forests; honestly it make you want to cry.
The Grey Breasted Mountain Toucan was the symbol and emblem of the Rio Mazan Project, a stunning bird, one we have been privileged to see. Amongst our finds were two new species of bat - Bat A and Bat B, and a freshwater invertebrate, Stonefly A. (I know; a lot of thought went into naming them). You can find Stonefly “A” in the museum, along with several plaster casts we took of big cat prints, probably Ocelot and Puma.
As part of the project we also proved the feed chain from the apex predators down starting with Felidae, P. Concolor the South American puma being the top of the chain along with spectacle bears, that we never saw. We gather poo, vomit and experimented with morphology - in terms of relationships between sizes of tunnels through the forest and what could have made them, footprints and plaster casts, as well as looking at links and chains and measuring the size of faecal matter.
The Natural History Museum in London were also remarkably helpful in dissecting the remains and helping us to identify the diet and what was being predated - this in turn allow us to add new species to the list. One of the species which seemed to be favourite on the menu was mountain deer.
If there are any budding scientist* out there you might want to give it a go yourself, or look at new ways we can identify and understand feed chains. Maybe small drones with cameras and FLIR could play a future role?
*We would strongly suggest you don’t handle poo, or bring it home, we don’t think your parents would be too impressed with that. There are also obvious health & wider disease risks.
Ecuador
Vintage tapastry of a deity
Stonefly “A”
Rio Mazan Poster
Rio Mazan original artwork by Maria
Rio Mazan Mammal report, leaflets and post cards
Mess Tins and Bush Knive used on the Rio Mazan expedition.
A Plastercast of Ocelot and Puma prints from Rio Mazan Expedition.
Peru
Jaguar Vase
Chimu Textile 1000 -1400AD Zoomorphic figures
Tumbaga Gold Death Mask Chimu (very rare)