Onto the Amazon

Sorry about the lack of pictures. The internet at my residence in Quito has been lacking since I've been back from the Galapagos. Here's a lovely picture of a damselfy that I took at USFQ because blogs without pictures are boring and not worth reading.

I will be leaving early this upcoming Monday morning and then little to no internet for an entire month (28 days[OH THE HORROR!]). I'll be staying at the Tiputini Biodiversity Station right on the Tiputini River, a tributary of the Amazon, just outside of Yasuni National Park and within the larger Yasuni Biosphere Reserve.

The rainforest is way too big of a topic for me to explain. Something along the lines of the "ultimate biological setting on Earth" and "the pinnacle of life as we know it" is not unwarranted. Read "Tropical Nature" by Adrian Forsyth & Ken Miyata for a pretty good intro. I'll hope to do my best by taking lots of pictures and videos to upload when I return.

More about Yasuni; this area was recently highlighted by National Geographic for their 125th anniversary. Pretty special, I guess.

This is the most biodiverse area on the planet. Naturally, people are trying to drill here for the oil that lies beneath.

"If we can't justify saving a place that has more species per square inch than anywhere else on the planet, then what hope is there for anything? What then do we keep? What then can we save?"

-Kelly Swing (My professor this entire semester!)

Kelly recently shot a news segment on Yasuni with Ann Curry that will supposedly air on Friday April 5th on "Rock Center with Brian Williams" on NBC. Check it out.  

See you in a month.