We went to iiap – the Research Institute in Iquitos this
morning. First we met with a man named Ricardo who helps to organise all the
boats and logistics for researchers. Freddie and Wayne spoke to him about boat
availability and organised dates for their next trips into the field. We then
met a guy called Dennis Del Castillo Torres, who is the director of iiap. He
had a great knowledge of the forest - particularly Aguajales. Lots of this type
of forest is being destroyed and used to grow oil palm on. Many Peruvians see
Aguajales as a waste of land and pointless. This is because they do not see any
short term profit from it. However, Aguajales are ecosystems with great
importance. For one thing, they store carbon and if destroyed this carbon will
be released into the atmosphere. In addition, the forests regulate water and
provide many ecosystem services regionally and globally. Dennis works with
scientists in order to protect the forest. The more papers that are published
the better as they provide scientific proof to how important the areas are and
the necessity of protecting them. The
government and local people need to understand and see the scientific research
showing the importance of the forest in order to want to protect it. At the
moment people are concerned with profit. Dennis had to persuade the owner of
quisakotcha zoo not to destroy the Aguajales, she wanted to expand the zoo. The
only way he could do this was by saying scientific tourism will bring money
into the area. Researchers will come and spend money to study the area. In this
way the owner saw the benefit of protecting the Aguajales. He did not argue for
the ecosystem benefit as this would not have worked as the lady would not have
seen any economic benefit in the short term.
Wayne’s work looks at the gas emissions that forests give
off. In quistakotcha there is a secondary forest and grass areas due to human
impact. So Wayne wants to get data from the areas affected by humans and the natural
areas in order to show the difference. If the data difference is drastic enough
then it will ultimately help to protect the area. I asked if there was a
balance that could be made where humans can use the forest and impact it without
destroying it. Freddie said not really as the ecosystems are so fragile and
must not be disturbed. The best solution would be if projects were put in place
to protect the area and make them national parks. For example, if REDD funded a
project to protect the area and allowed locals to live there still but had
rules and regulations in place. The inhabitants would be compensated for this so
could get by.
We then went for lunch and when we got back Freddie’s PHD
friend Jacob was there. His work looks into birds and floristic compositions.
Freddie seemed keen to pair up with him to do some work which sounded
cool. Jacob was interested in writing a paper
about comparing deforestation footprints.
For example, it might be better to efficiently extract oil in a way
which causes the least damage possible than to use an area of forest to farm
cattle. To make the same profit a larger area of land must be destroyed to farm
cattle than to extract oil.
I helped Freddie do some more data input into excel spread
sheets. I read the figures and species names and Freddie typed it into excel.
Went to Kekiricks for dinner – yummy chicken and chips and
chaufa.
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