Tag archives for South America
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An iconic freshwater fish of tropical South America, the arapaima is a massive, slender beast that can grow up to 10 feet (3 meters) long and weigh 440 pounds (200 kilograms). It is known as the pirarucu in Brazil and the paiche in the western Amazon, and is one of the largest freshwater fish in…
Posted by His name means “Hawk” in his language. Yet even with the acuity of vision the moniker suggests, Karapiru could not have foreseen thetragedy that befell his people, the Awá tribe of northeastern Brazil. He could never have imagined the day that he would flee for his life far into the rainforest, a shotgun pellet burning…
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Dozens of readers have suggested a name for a newfound species of decoy-building spider. What would you call it?
Science in Yasuni Sheds Light on Impacts of Oil Development in Amazon
Posted by Guest Blogger on December 26, 2012 
By Kelly Swing In 1993, Universidad San Francisco de Quito and Boston University administrators asked me to suggest possible sites for a new biological field station somewhere in Ecuador’s eastern rainforests. Instantly, I was fantasizing about all the wondrous things that we could do and see at such facilities, if the location were chosen wisely.…
Posted by Following tests on smaller islands, the government of Ecuador today begins the second phase of dropping massive amounts of specially designed poison on a Galapagos island thought to be infested with nearly 200 million invasive rats. Introduced centuries ago by pirates, whalers and other visitors, the rodents wreak havoc among the wildlife of Galapagos by preying on eggs and hatchlings of bird and reptile species.
In 1835 Charles Darwin arrived on Floreana Island in the Galapagos, noting in his journal that it had long been frequented, first by buccaneers, latterly by whalers–and then political dissidents exiled from mainland South America. The giant tortoises Darwin saw on Floreana have since been extirpated from the island and the prisoners and pirates exist only in history. But the scenery he described remains much the same, and a tradition of leaving mail in a “post office barrel” for collection and delivery by passing ships has endured for two centuries.
This is the second post in my account of a ten-day exploration of the Galapagos, on board the National Geographic Endeavour. In the first post, I described our arrival on the island of San Cristobal and our first visit to a Galapagos beach. We awoke on the first full day of our expedition to…
Bewitched, enchanted, beguiling. Those are just some of the terms explorers across five centuries have used to describe the Galapagos, an unmatched archipelago of islands drifting in the vastness of the open ocean, in the middle of nowhere.
ON the forested western edge of Maranhao state in north-east Brazil lives the Awá tribe. One of only two nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes left in Brazil, the Awa have long lived in this area, which lies between the equatorial forests of Amazonia and the drier savannas to the east. They are the most threatened tribe in…
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An interactive map, launched at Rio+20, seeks to help people keep up-to-date on the state of the Amazon basin.
More Sightings, Violence Around Uncontacted Tribes
Posted by Scott Wallace on January 31, 2012 Recent attacks by isolated tribesmen have left one man dead and another wounded in the wilds of southeastern Peru. But what’s causing the increase in conflict?
Durban Plan for Climate Treaty Greeted With Mixed Feelings
Posted by Leon Marshall of Environmental Journalist, News Watch South African Contributor on December 12, 2011 The COP17 round of climate negotiations in Durban has once again shown just how hard it is to devise a cohesive international response to this threatening phenomenon. It is for this reason that the conference’s agreement to sign up to an all-inclusive legal commitment to reduce carbon emissions has been hailed as a major breakthrough,…
Posted by The United Nations chose today as a “symbolic date” for the the population milestone of 7,000,000,000 people. Today is also Halloween, so the UN chose aptly: Population has been the monster knocking at our door for a long time. National Geographic Senior Environment Editor Robert Kunzig comments that the biggest population problem is not growth, it’s the way we live.
Photos taken on 18 January 2011 by a remote camera traps we have set up as part of an ongoing conservation science project to study the Andean bear illustrate that our sense of hearing, along with our sense of smell, is relatively weak compared to those of the large mammals living in the Peruvian forest, and that they react to us even when we don’t know they are there.
Concern for Uncontacted Tribes as Armed Gang Invades Brazilian Forest
Posted by Scott Wallace on August 8, 2011 Five Brazilian Indian rights officials are holding out in a remote jungle outpost in a desperate attempt to protect uncontacted indigenous groups from heavily-armed drug traffickers who have moved into the area from Peru in the past two weeks, according to dispatches from the scene. Officials fear the traffickers may have unleashed a manhunt to track down and exterminate the highly vulnerable tribal populations in order to clear the forests for their coca-growing operations.
How Will Lima Slake its Growing Thirst?
Posted by Daniel Grossman of Environmental Journalist, News Watch Contributing Editor on May 19, 2011 Lima is one of the cities of the world most immediately threatened by global warming. The capital of Peru was built on the edge of a desert, one of the driest in the world. And its primary source of water is a small river, the Rimac. The Rimac’s water trickles off glaciers high in the Andes which, unfortunately for Limeños, are rapidly melting. Peru has lost about 30 percent of its glacial ice in the last 40 years.
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Dr. Stephen B. Malcolm, professor at Western Michigan University, has been studying monarch butterflies in the field for 28 years, recently with support from National Geographic’s Committee for Research and Exploration. He can tell you all about the monarchs passing through your garden this spring — and some of their mysterious cousins in South America.
The remaining hundred uncontacted tribes in the world capture the imagination of millions of “civilized” people. Yet they are the last cultures fully engaged with their natural environment. If they are stripped of their ancestral land, all of humankind will have lost the last people who truly understand our connections with the Earth.
Finding a Home for Dracula
Posted by Stuart Pimm on March 23, 2011 National Geographic scientist Stuart Pimm reports on the quest for Dracula, a particularly lovely orchid that flourishes in the cloud forests of the northern Andes of Colombia.
Salas y Gómez Expedition: An Exceptional Mission
Posted by erinhirota on March 8, 2011 Comandante Andres Rodrigo, commanding officer of the Comandante Toro, shares his thoughts on the Chilean Navy’s first patrol of the new marine park surrounding Salas y Gómez and on hosting a civilian expedition team aboard his ship. Chilean Navy Comandante Andres Rodrigo scans monitors on the bridge of the OPV Comandante Toro. By Ford Cochran…
Salas y Gómez Expedition: Locating an Island Via Satellite
Posted by erinhirota on March 7, 2011 Marine ecologists use a new satellite image of Salas y Gómez and existing imagery of Easter Island to plan their dives and plot their data–and to correct long-standing cartographic errors in the placement of the former island. Alan Friedlander imports a high-resolution satellite image of Salas y Gómez into the GIS on his laptop and…
Salas y Gómez Expedition: Enric Sala Answers Your Questions
Posted by erinhirota on March 7, 2011 Marine ecologist and National Geographic Fellow Enric Sala takes a break from diving around Salas y Gómez Island to answer your questions. Are you guys taking necessary precautions so as not to affect the marine life in any way? Yes absolutely. Our objective is to study the natural behavior of marine life, so we do…
Salas y Gómez Expedition: Marine Protection for Rapa Nui
Posted by erinhirota on March 6, 2011 Oceana’s Alex Muñoz Wilson and National Geographic’s Enric Sala met this afternoon with Rapa Nui community representatives on Easter Island to discuss their ambition to create a marine protected area off the island’s only town, Hanga Roa. In time, such a park might restore some of the abundance recalled by long-time Easter Island residents and…
Salas y Gómez Expedition: Last Day in the Marine Park
Posted by erinhirota on March 5, 2011 Today was our last day at Salas y Gómez before returning to Easter Island. We have spent only six days at this little island but already it feels like home. We first dived here wondering what its underwater world was like; now we leave feeling part of it. A rainbow greets the dive team at…
Salas y Gómez Expedition: To Motu Motira Hiva
Posted by erinhirota on March 4, 2011 For days, we’ve dived around Salas y Gómez and stood on deck, staring at its rocky, surf-swept contours. Much as we wanted to explore it above the waterline, a landing looked reckless, if not impossible. Michel Garcia had done it before, years ago, and thought it could be done again. He found a way. The…
