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After spending six weeks winding our way from river to river and town
to town in the flooded Peruvian Amazon, I will leave this place far more
amazed than I ever anticipated at the way plants, animals, and people
flourish--not just survive--in this environment.
Think hard about what the challenge of living here amounts to. Has your
basement ever been flooded? Have you ever turned on the evening news and
seen people frantically wading next to their submerged cars, or clinging
to a telephone pole in the middle of a raging current?
In our part of the world, floods are catastrophes. They are unexpected,
dangerous, often deadly. Floods can destroy vast amounts of property--cars,
homes, roads--and wipe out plants, animals and unsuspecting people when
they strike.
So how is it possible that anything or anyone can live in an area that
floods every single year, sometimes by as much as 15 feet? Easy--strategy.
Plant species here have adapted remarkably well to live with the regular
flooding cycle.
We've already talked about how some plants, such as epiphytes, survive
the floods. Instead of dealing with the hassle of rising and receding
water every year, epiphytes simply attach themselves high up in trees,
gathering water and nutrients from other plant matter and rain. How do
epiphytes handle potentially catastrophic floods? They avoid.
We've also seen many capoc trees, with their massive systems of buttress
roots shooting out hundreds of feet from the tree trunk. Is a little water
going to knock over a tree with roots as tall as houses and as wide as
a football field? Don't think so. Capoc trees survive the floods by bracing
themselves.
Finally, we've learned down here that local fishermen use the bark of
the punga tree as a medicine to prevent rheumatism, a disease afflicting
people who spend large amounts of time in the water. The fishermen figured
that since the tree survived in a flooded environment so well, maybe there
was something in its bark protecting it. And the fishermen were right!
The punga tree does just fine in the flooded forest because it makes its
own medicine!
The animals of the flooded forest, like the plants, have consistently
impressed me with their clever and ingenious ways of making do in the
floods.
Some animals, like the white-lipped peccaries we've seen, or the tapir,
know to congregate on high ground during the flood season.
Other animals are at home on land or in the water. Anacondas,
black caimans and side neck turtles are all examples of animals we've
seen that are content whether the ground is flooded or not--they're versatile.
As we've paddled through the forest, arboreal animals, such as the howler
monkeys, squirrel
monkeys, and blue
and gold macaws have kept us company constantly, and often noisily,
happily oblivious to the flooding far beneath them. So, too, have fire
ants, who survive the floods by patrolling the branches of specific trees
and attacking whomever dares to disturb the trees (usually us).
We know from our fishing excursions that some smaller fish, the piranha
and shuyo, for example, prefer the flood season because they can hide
from larger predators among the roots and vines in the flooded forest.
The larger species of fish, like the arapaima,
know to gorge themselves on small fry during the dry season because food
will be more scarce during the floods. It seems like both large and small
fish try to use the flooding cycle to their advantage!
As impressed as I've been by these and other plant and animal adaptations,
it is the people who call the flooded forest home who have most inspired
me with their unique ability to thrive in such a demanding environment.
The skills the people here take for granted as necessary for living a
lifetime in the flooded forest are phenomenal.
Remember the guy we found in the forest building three dugout canoes?
His only tools were a machete, an axe, and a large jug of river water.
Or how about the art of building a house on stilts, spear fishing in the
dry season or hunting with a blowgun during the rainy season?
Perhaps the single most impressive tool the riberenos
possess is knowledge--knowledge of medicinal plants, geography, seasonal
flooding patterns, edible wild plants and animals (and their poisonous
kin), raising crops and livestock in both dry and flooded environments,
and much more.
With this great body of knowledge comes an even greater sense of appreciation
and respect for the plants, animals, people--the whole flooded forest
as an ecosystem, beating and pulsing like a giant living organism--not
just surviving, but living and thriving together.
I hope you've enjoyed Project Peru! We certainly appreciated having you
all along for the adventure. See you next year.
Adam
High Temperature 82
Humidity 76%
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