Facilitated during its initial phase by the Carter Center and other partners Haiti and Dominican Republic implemented a binational project in border areas with increasing population movements and economic activities as a new approach to malaria control and elimination The binational efforts successfully lead towards building relationships and harmonizing malaria diagnosis and surveillance interventions across the border communities of Ouanaminthe and Dajabon The project likewise demonstrated innovative use of technology in establishing real-time reporting of malaria data facilitated by tablets and use of GIS; effectively engaged the private sector and various other sectors; and affirmed the value of community health workers and a good supervision system in terms of ensuring universal access to early diagnosis and treatment to highly mobile and remote populations and a strong community-based surveillance system This malaria champion has set the path to malaria elimination in the Ouanaminthe-Dajabon border and is a remarkable example of a creative response to cultural diversity in a historically and politically sensitive situation that confronts many border areas throughout the Region and globally With the objective of ensuring gradual and sustainable reduction of malaria cases and deaths and promoting socio-economic development Brazil engaged in relentless efforts towards establishing a local and well sustained system that enables universal access to key malaria interventions These include timely and good quality diagnosis and integrated vector management measures; as well as innovative approaches such as floating laboratories the use of a smartphone app that facilitate treatment decisions and information-sharing and establishment of the “malaria meter” which fosters transparency and accountability in relation to the targets against malaria The work of this champion facilitated the reduction of malaria burden among isolated population groups in logistically challenging areas from approximately 8,000 cases in 2013 to 126 cases as of October 2017; and presents an outstanding example of a community and health service system that has given enduring high priority to malaria and has successfully navigated the challenges of decentralization through the involvement of various sectors and by building the capacity of local institutions See the picture gallery. 09.06.2017 | Systems On a rare sunny morning in the Amazon’s high rainy season a two-story houseboat retrofitted as a floating research station docks on the shore of Deus é Pai The small river community sits on the Eiru River in Brazil’s Upper Jurua watershed carrying 8,000 liters (2,100 gallons) of diesel fuel and the support crew needed to power a three-month expedition Villagers peer out through open windows and watch as three researchers hop off the boat and struggle up the steep They shake hands with a mother and her children sitting on a porch a barefoot PhD student with a thick graying beard who studies bald-headed uakari monkeys; Lísley Lemos flip-flop clad researcher who studies hunting pressure on howler monkeys; and Laura Marsh the expedition leader and an expert on saki monkeys Lemos sweeps her arm toward the fifteen other people standing on the boats and explains that they are part of a scientific mission Colombia and the U.K.—includes conservation biologists Lemos asks the locals for permission to park the boat along the shore “We’re looking for a missing saki monkey with golden arms and legs,” she explains Forty kilometers from the isolated city of Eirunepé and on the border of the Kulina Indigenous Reserve Deus é Pai is the first of many communities where the team will hire guides to help search for the “missing” primate: the bald-faced Vanzolini saki monkey (Pithecia vanzollinii) they will explore five rivers in the Juruá River’s 43,000-square-mile watershed—where they think based on historical records and other factors Route 1                   Route 2                   Route 3                   Return Route                   The Juruá River is one of the longest and most sinuous of the Amazon’s tributaries From its headwaters near the Serra do Divisor National Park on the border of Peru it snakes through dense jungle for roughly 3,200 kilometers (2,000 miles) until it merges with the Rio Salimões farther northeast Since biodiversity naturally increases from east to west in the Amazon the Juruá’s location deep in the west sets it up to be among the world’s top biodiversity hotspots this landscape transforms into the most extensive system of riverine flooded forests on Earth sediment-loaded water from the Andes pulses into the low-lying plains that water mixes with the black-water swamps and fills up countless side channels the forests flood to depths up to 50 meters This not only confines the forest’s animals to the canopy making even the forest’s most elusive creatures easier to spot Leaving on foot or in canoes from the houseboat each morning the expedition team will survey the region recording species of mammals and primates and their distribution across the watershed—something that has never been done before in this area Their goal: to determine which species live where While scientists have identified 16 species of saki monkey endemic to South America what they know about these animals is generally limited to what can be gleaned from the most fleeting of glimpses but larger than the titis and tamarins that often share the same forests to help steer as they leap breathtaking distances through the treetops—earning them the moniker of macacos que voo When threatened by a predator—or simply to dry off after a downpour—sakis puff up their long hair and cooing noises are barely audible above the cacophony of other forest sounds Unlike the bolder spider monkeys that tend to scream and throw sticks at a threat named after the Brazilian scientist and musician Paulo Emilio Vanzolini is distinct: It alone among the sakis has golden arms black except for a white stripe around its dog-like snout is framed by a shaggy mane of hair that resembles a loose toupee the rest of its body is covered in black-and-white speckled hair Its shaggy form and thick tail makes it easy to recognize the last record of the Vanzolini Saki monkey along the Rio Eiru was made in 1936 when an Ecuadorian naturalist named Alfonso Olalla shot 35 specimens for museum collections the monkey has dropped off the map for over 80 years Finding a lost species such as this is no easy task Locals who live in remote regions of the world—walking the trails hunting the forests—may know its whereabouts but that information rarely reaches scientists unless they get out into the field Which is precisely why these conservation biologists have traveled to this remote corner of the Amazon They even distribute pollen along their way Yet despite the importance of the ecological role they serve primates are disappearing from their forest homes at an alarming rate a team of primatologists led by Anthony Rylands of Conservation International announced that three-quarters of the world’s primates are currently in decline largely due to habitat loss and over-hunting Several species have already vanished over the past few decades and are presumed extinct “This is exactly why we are doing a major survey in Brazil,” Marsh wrote on the Houseboat Amazon Facebook page before the trip began Surveying the Juruá watershed is the first step to determining the heath of the forest and the conservation status of the species that live there The surveys will give scientists a baseline of information vital to tracking population trends—and figuring out how to protect these animals into the future What they find may also help to shed light on the health of the Amazon’s forests in general scientists start to wonder: Is that the last piece Have we now lost what’s necessary for the rainforest to function as a healthy ecosystem we may not know what the tipping point is until we reach it approaches a barefoot boy of about 7 years old sitting on his porch in a threadbare cotton t-shirt and blue shorts Duarte opens a blank notebook and hands the boy a bag of colored pencils She starts drawing the houseboat and asks him to draw his house while she chats with his mother about the family’s favorite foods Duarte pulls out laminated photographs of animals and asks the mom to pick out which ones the family hunts for food Duarte then separates out the monkeys and asks the mom to sort them by most to least tasty The mom places the larger spider monkeys on top None of these monkeys are abundant in the forests A lecturer at the National School of Anthropology and History in Mexico City Duarte says she studies humans “as one more primate in the ecosystem.” She is interested in how our use of natural resources impacts the other primates while her colleagues survey the forests for monkeys Duarte helps villagers harvest and peel manioc By participating in the villagers’ daily lives she collects data on how they use the forest’s resources She also visits every household that has a pet monkey to collect hair for future DNA analysis and to gather information about where the monkey came from and how much the family paid for it Duarte also works with the locals to make maps which provide the team with vital information: locations of salt licks where the field team can set up camera traps the boat has moved downriver to the next community along the Rio Eiru Marsh and a small team follow a local guide on foot into the forest The just-hired guide showed up with a shotgun in hand hoping to take advantage of the gig by hunting the same monkeys the scientists are trying to protect When two guides in the previous community had shown up with shotguns While the scientists acknowledge that hunting is how the local people feed their families “They can go and shoot everything they see with us after we leave But they can’t bring a gun when they are working with us.”  it’s not unusual for hunters to target the animals that conservation biologists study researchers had to stop tagging and tracking endangered manatees because hunters were following them and killing the animals scientists have started keeping the GPS and radio signals of collared Mexican wolves secret because poachers were using the signals to pinpoint the animals’ whereabouts “It’s a problem everywhere,” says an exasperated Marsh “This has happened in every community I’ve worked in now leads us down a trail faintly marked with snapped branches and saplings macheted to shin height Shotgun shells hang on twigs to mark side trails Heading for a salt lick to set up camera traps the scientists keep their eyes and ears tuned for any sign of sakis Marsh periodically bushwhacks off the trail following the sound of fruit dropping or leaves rustling in the canopy—possible signs of monkeys “When you’ve got everything turned on high every little movement makes your heart skip in excitement,” she says the team has encountered an anteater (Tamandua tetradactyla) and a black tarantula the size of the GPS in Marsh’s hand; but no monkeys an exceptionally loud bird exclaims whet-whew just overhead It sounds more like a rude man’s cat-call than a bird It’s normally an indicator of undisturbed forest,” says Marsh To her eyes—those of an experienced tropical ecologist—the forest looks healthy The trees along the trail average two feet in diameter or more Some rise from the ground straight as a pencil into the canopy; others prop themselves up with angled stilt roots above the seasonally flooded ground Still others fan out in the iconic folds of buttress roots that impress every newcomer to a rainforest—and that give the tree enough support to reach heights of 130 feet or more Small ferns and glossy pink and green plants blanket the forest floor Marsh picks up a handful of uneaten yellow fruit from among dozens fallen on the ground She has walked through forests like this in national parks in Ecuador and Peru “Those forests had monkey tornadoes,” Marsh says meaning they contained a full slate of rainforest primates everything from the larger howler and spider monkeys all the way down to tiny marmosets each species typically gathers fruits from different heights in the trees and disperses seeds as it goes “This is a pretty forest and there’s obviously plenty of fruit Ennes tells Marsh that their guide advised them never to walk off-trail around the community set up gun-traps with wire triggers to shoot pacas and tapir at eye level Most primatologists have a story of the moment they fell in love with the creatures they study it was walking the newly cut transects of Tiputini Biodiversity Station in Ecuador’s Yasuní Biosphere Reserve as a graduate student in 2001 She spent several seasons conducting the first primate surveys of the area That generally meant staring up into the canopy she glanced down and locked eyes with a monkey sitting on a branch overhanging the trail “and I didn’t know what it was.” Using guide books Marsh dug through everything she could find describing sakis She sent an informal email to a few primatologists asking for help They suggested she straighten out the taxonomy herself “That’s what started this journey,” she told me over coffee in Santa Fe It took Marsh ten years to sort out and update the saki monkey taxonomy—essentially a record of how many species there are She visited every specimen in museums around the world and took several trips to South America to see live animals in captivity and the wild She described and delineated the ranges of 16 species in two volumes of the journal Neotropical Primates published in 2014 She was able to find evidence of live individuals for every species except the Vanzolini She corresponded with scientists and field researchers in the Amazon but no one could send her photographs or evidence of the Vazolini So Marsh decided she should try to find it A review of the scientific literature on the Upper Jurua watershed the proposed home range of the Vanzolini sakis provided very little useful information about the area Maps showed that Cruzeiro do Sul and Eirunepé relatively small cities at either end of the study area were surrounded by widening swaths of deforested land and agricultural fields the view via Google Earth looked promising: The forest appeared intact with very little in the way of human settlements a few small dots indicated riberinho communities or subsistence villages along the river banks tucked within the solid green of vast untouched forest Marsh and her colleagues expected the area would be much the same as what Olalla the Ecuadorian collector encountered in the early 1930s when he set up camp All signs suggested the Vanzolini saki would still be thriving there “It looked like a monkey paradise,” Marsh said But scientists never know what they’ll find until they arrive the sunset turns puffy clouds into neon cotton candy while the field team gathers on the houseboat’s lower deck for dinner an ex-Brazilian jungle army soldier serves us all generous portions of chicken stew from a closet-sized kitchen too small to stand up in The conversation turns to the day’s observations One measurement primatologists use to determine species abundance is the amount of effort required to locate animals Eight pairs of eyes searched the forest for 11 hours that day “That’s a lot of effort for not a lot of payoff,” Marsh says The Rio Eiru is turning out to be more disturbed by settlements and hunting than any of the scientists expected While the forest remains relatively intact in most places “It’s not the monkey paradise we imagined we were headed to,” says Marsh Over the course of a month on the Rio Eiru the expedition team’s evening meetings mirror a much larger debate that’s taking place within conservation biology circles: whether the Amazon ecosystem is so threatened by hunting practices that it’s becoming an “empty forest.” In 1992 then working for the Wildlife Conservation Society coined the term to refer to forests that otherwise had excellent habitat but were devoid of large mammals the forest loses critical ecological functions On an average day of surveying along the Eiru four survey teams turn up a total of two to three species of monkeys and other forests in Ecuador where hunting pressure is minimal to none a single observer could record five species before noon has been sorting through 14 years of hunting data from two forest reserves in the northern state of Amazonas local communities work with scientists to track hunting and logging activities and to manage wildlife populations which means hunting can have an outsized impact on them at a rate that’s keeping pace with what hunters kill those reserves are connected to vast stretches of intact forest In the neighboring states of Rodônia and Pará where the so-called “arc of deforestation” has clear-cut the ecosystem into isolated patches As the arc of deforestation creeps northwest says Lemos..“Howler populations are stable for now but we can’t say anything definitive about the future,” she says What Marsh couldn’t tell from looking at maps before the expedition was that hunting pressure along the Rio Eiru and in the larger Juruá watershed is far more intense than what’s allowed legally the region’s animals face threats from more than local villagers looking to put food on the table—and they have for a long time The hunting trails that crisscross the Juruá watershed were originally blazed by rubber tappers during the first rubber boom in the late 1800s and then a second during World War II When the market for natural rubber bottomed out an international trade in Amazonian furs opened up deer and peccaries were also on the list for their skins From data collected and analyzed from commercial trade logs researchers found that populations of animals and fish along waterways of the Amazon basin fell throughout the 20th century With rubber collection mostly a thing of the past seringal communities in the Juruá watershed are dying out The children of many rubber tappers have either left or become manioc farmers and loggers who hunt for subsistence and sell their goods in the city and bushmeat—staples of the Amazonian diet—all are being transported from the villages to urban centers in a near constant stream of dugout canoe traffic hunting is illegal throughout Brazil except in traditional or indigenous communities Since many seringal families have moved to the city but maintain ties to riberinho communities through extended family “A lot of our hunting laws depend on the interpretation of the person enforcing them,” says Lemos “What’s written in the laws is not very clear.” arrived from the city a few days earlier and chopped down a large tree to kill a family of howler monkeys “That’s a lot of effort for a hunter,” says Marsh who helps analyze hunting pressure for primate species on the IUCN Red List “It’s indicative of the intense hunting pressure this region faces from outside the riberinho communities.” city dwellers illegally hunting along the waterways—all have combined to severely reduce the density of animals in the region the last community we’ll survey on the Rio Eiru It’s close to where the Olalla brothers collected Vanzolini sakis in the 1930s The morning light fills the overcast sky as four of us lower ourselves from the houseboat into a red striped canoe Three other survey teams set out on foot or in other canoes We motor away from the community along a channel through the flooded forest The now-familiar screech of squirrel monkeys is audible above the roar of our motor We alternate between motoring and paddling through a forest fractured and broken by human pursuits newly slashed and burned from the forest to feed the nearby city we heard from the villagers that a hunting party recently killed 14 uakari monkeys We decide to change course and head toward the lakes where the Olalla brothers collected the Vanzolinis The canoe driver picks up the long rabeta motor the more the trunks of trees fill out and fill up with bromeliads the iconic red flower of the Amazon flooded forest We hit the Juruá and the landscape opens for a couple of minutes before we duck back into a side channel The tops of submerged cecropia trees clutter the waterway Vines laden with purple morning glories weave the trees together in a tight tapestry Floating meadows and blooming water hyacinth edge the channel Fragrance molecules heavy with moisture fall from flowers in the forest canopy I’m bathed in the scents intensified by the wet We pull into a second channel and the driver slows the motor We stop to photograph it and mark a GPS point sore from eight-hour days on hard wooden canoe benches we see the outline of a black monkey with a long fluffy tail surveying us from a branch overhanging the open water its limbs covered in unmistakable golden fur Then it leaps from the channel’s edge and disappears into the dark forest noting how distinct the Vanzolini saki’s appearance is from other monkeys we’ve seen He quickly swings the long stem of the motor back into the boat picks up a paddle and steers us silently into the thicket of the flooded forest I jump when we bump a tree trunk and a tarantula falls at my feet I tuck in my shirt and hope for the best as we continue up the channel A pink river dolphin (Inia geoffrensis) has followed the canoe into the forest using its flexible neck to negotiate the maze of submerged tree trunks and branches Two blue-and-yellow macaws (Ara ararauna) fly overhead their long tails and loud voices unmistakable The rainforest seems to be revealing its secrets to us all at once I’m not sure which way to look or point my camera Turning toward the sound of rustling branches I see them: three Vanzolini sakis now overhead One slinks slowly along a thick branch above the canoe and props itself in the crook of the tree to stare down at us Another vaults from tree to tree making a wide circle around us We duck under hanging vines and push our way in between tree trunks as the paddlers oar the water to pull us forward Following the sound of their soft clicks and chatter we pull up under a second group of two sakis Again the female finds a perch while the male runs off My heart is pounding and I hold my breath to steady my camera I get a few good shots before the sakis bound away into forest too dense for our long canoe to follow the driver plops the motor in the water and we head off for the houseboat at top speed the team gathers around the boat’s galley for breakfast “In case you haven’t heard the news,” Marsh says “we got word over the satellite last night that a graduate students from the University of São Paulo published a paper with the title ‘Rediscovery of Vanzolini’s Bald-Faced Saki.’” The air A graduate student doing unrelated field work near the southern end of the Juruá watershed collected the skins and skull of a Vanzolini saki a hunter killed while he was there Having learned of Marsh’s expedition to find the Vanzolini the grad student rushed to publish the discovery scooping the expedition team’s planned publication of a paper with the same title Marsh’s team has endured showers of ants falling from trees waist-deep treks through mucky marshes; they’ve hauled canoes over low-water sand bars endured weeks in close quarters on a small ship with 18 people and been covered in sandfly and mosquito bites—only to have their discovery scooped by a guy who was handed a Vanzolini by a hunter After a couple of days blowing off steam and more than a few references to the infamous jostle between Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace they decide the expedition won’t be sabotaged by the rediscovery of a single Vanzolini They have come to find as many sakis and mammals as possible across the monkey’s entire range Their glory will come in ending the Vanzolini sakis’ reign as a species that scientists know almost nothing about Marsh and her team ultimately record 20 saki group sightings—compared to only eight groups combined for howler and spider monkeys As the largest primate left in the Eiru forests the Vanzolini’s saving graces may be that sakis are hard to hunt and the locals don’t love the taste of its meat There’s a good argument for continued boots-on-the-ground research in the Vanzolini’s home range “Working here is like piecing together a puzzle,” Ennes tells me “We are still figuring out what species of primates live here and if they are different from their counterparts in other parts of the Amazon.” Marsh and Ennes are now working to confirm at least two potential new discoveries made along their route During three months in the Jurua watershed the team uncovers stark differences between the influence of hunting on the Eiru and Liberdade rivers Duarte finds evidence of illegal wildlife trafficking and hunting on all three rivers they record significantly higher numbers of primates and other mammals than on the unprotected rivers the scientists hope it can serve as a model species for conservation planning they want to start a citizen science program where local people would work alongside scientists to study wildlife and manage resources sustainably Marsh also hopes to someday help establish a research field station in the interior forests of the Brazilian Amazon “We scientists go where the rivers are because that is where we can get to Our version of reality is tainted by locations that are easy to reach We need to find a way to get beyond rivers and find what’s out there—before it’s lost.” Used with permission of Global Conservation Institute for Houseboat Amazon Editor’s note: This story was originally published on June 6 Since saki monkeys have been enjoying their fifteen minutes of fame in recent weeks we republished the piece as our featured story on August 30 2017 in order to surface this discovery for our readers Christina Selby is a conservation photographer and author based in Santa Fe In her pursuit to bring important conservation issues to the public eye she has kayaked the Sea of Cortez staked out wolves in the American Southwest and pursued lost species in the Amazon rainforest She is the author of two outdoor guidebooks and her work has appeared in such outlets as bioGraphic christinamselby.com bioGraphic is powered by the California Academy of Sciences a renowned scientific and educational institution dedicated to regenerating the natural world through science Brazil – An expedition exploring a remote watershed in the western Amazon has uncovered the first living evidence of a species of monkey not seen alive by scientists in 80 years according to saki expert and expedition leader Dr The account of the discovery will be published in a forthcoming issue of the journal Oryx a major biological expedition wrapped up earlier this year in the Upper Juruá watershed located in the Brazilian states of Acre and Amazonas The three-month expedition was the first survey of primates and other mammals in the watershed in more than 60 years The main goal was to find the missing bald-faced Vanzolini saki a large monkey with a long fluffy tail and golden fur on its arms and legs Ecuadorian naturalist Alfonzo Olalla collected this species in 1936 along the Rio Eiru His record was the first evidence of the Vanzolini saki and no other living evidence had been found in the area since After stocking up on supplies at the shops along a single paved road in Eirunepé A small riverside community on the border of the Kulina Indigenous Reserve served as the first of many base camps Even though it had been 80 years since scientists encountered the saki monkey in this area the team was hopeful they would find the lost primate team members motored up a side channel in a metal canoe traveling several hours against the current with the aid of an ear-piercing motor that echoed off the trees The boat driver decided the jam was too wide to rev the engine and force the boat over at high speed as he had done with several other downed trees that morning The boat floated in silence for a few minutes when Ivan Batista an experienced field guide hired for the expedition spotted a black monkey leaping from branch to branch in a tall tree a couple hundred feet into the forest the saki monkey is easily distinguished from other monkeys that share these forests That was the first of what would be many encounters with the now rediscovered Vanzolini saki the expedition found the monkeys distributed along the entirety of the surveyed areas of the southern tributaries of the Juruá in Amazonas state and west from the Tarauacá River to the western side of the Liberdade River the team turned to questions of their conservation status “if no further controls on hunting and forest clearing are put into place outside of what limited reserves currently exist the saki’s conservation status may become critical.” Hunting along the rivers in the Juruá watershed is having a major impact on primate populations which are a preferred food source [for local communities] have been hunted out of the forests along the Eiru and Liberdade Rivers,” she said Subsistence communities living along the rivers are allowed by law to hunt primates for food since 1967 article 29 of Brazilian law 9.605/98 has prohibited hunting of wildlife The expedition team often saw bushmeat being transported in canoes to sell in nearby cities and city dwellers using the forests along the river to hunt and clear land for manioc and cattle Cattle ranching is the number one driver of deforestation in the Amazon followed by subsistence agriculture and logging Satellite data from the University of Maryland visualized on Global Forest Watch (GFW) show that overall most of the Vanzolini saki’s home range is still comprised of Intact Forest Landscapes areas of primary forest big and undisturbed enough to retain their original levels of biodiversity But GFW also shows tree cover loss creeping up from the south and outward from local cities along the Juruá River and Brazilian Highway 364 The ringing sounds of chainsaws regularly accompanied field teams while in the forests I joined a team on a dryland survey along the Tarauacá River we came across four active logging sites where local villagers were using chainsaws to cut felled trees into boards We also heard two more active sites across the river Several men carried long boards out on their shoulders and loaded them into their boat which they would later take to markets in the city a researcher from Mexico who collected data on resource use in each village where the expedition docked noted these loggers would receive between $3.75-$7.50 per 16-inch board In this roadless area of the Amazon where rivers serve as the main transportation highways wood for boats and homes is always in high demand Logging for subsistence use is allowed by Brazilian law the Brazilian national environmental enforcement agency “I can’t say that I saw any illegal logging in the study area,” Marsh said Without specific knowledge of the laws or circumstances of the individual loggers Marsh isn’t clear whether these activities were legal or not The expedition didn’t encounter any large-scale commercial operations along the tributaries of the Juruá When I drove a two-hour stretch of this road outside of Rio Branco only federally protected Brazil nut trees remained standing alone in pastures Dirt roads exit the highway in a fishbone pattern extending clearing further into the surrounding forest mainly for cattle grazing it was built to facilitate transport from Eirunepé to the border of Acre Between eighty and ninety percent of Acre was covered in forest in 2015 But according to the National Institute for Space Research which tracks deforestation rates in Brazil by satellite forest clearing increased 47 percent in the state in 2016 dirt roads are steering deforestation for cattle ranching from Acre up into Amazonas City dwellers in Eirunepé and Ipixuna are also clearing land for cattle and manioc farms Large patches of newly slashed-and-burned forest are visible from a prop plane as it circles the airport to land in Eirunepé Several hundred humped-back white cows stand in these fields and Tarauacá Rivers are also chipping away at their surrounding forest While each subsistence farm is relatively small manioc requires clearing a new patch of forest each year was the most affected river of the expedition study area Communities of 50 or more families have been settled there for around 80 years and large areas of land were converted for cattle ranching and manioc farms long ago The Eiru River was the second-most affected While the forest there was still decently intact “it seemed like a free-for-all” in terms of hunting The river flows through an Extractive Reserve (RESEX) a type of sustainable-use protected area where people who live there can hunt and extract resources within a certain monthly quota “We heard less sound of chainsaws and came across fewer active logging sites on the Gregorio,” Marsh said that are nationally protected as well as many more types of mammals.” Satellite data from the University of Maryland show significantly less forest clearing along the Gregorio than along the other rivers While Duarte still found instances of illegal logging its status as a protected area does seem to be making a difference for conservation of the forest and animals compared to neighboring areas Without evidence that hunting or forest clearing for manioc farms and cattle will slow down the expedition researchers are concerned for the future of the newly rediscovered Vanolini saki monkey Current levels of impact have created a patchwork of human disturbance throughout the study area where monkeys still exist in pockets like lakes or distant dryland forest that are difficult to access “If it just stayed at this level of impact right now,” Marsh said “it’s not ideal for the conservation of Vanzolini populations but at the end of the day it’s not killing the entire species because humans simply can’t get at them all.” because we are all sensitive to each other.” In the case of selective logging “when people take out trees that monkeys use for fruit or sleeping that has a direct and personal impact on the primates.” But it’s the continued cumulative impact of hunting and other human pressures that concerns Marsh and her colleagues most Forests in Amazonas state are still mostly intact because the area is hard to get to and the forests flood for half the year “Every large-scale deforestation starts small at some point.” She and her team worry that if the technology for road building or timber extraction in flooded forest and the rugged terrain of dryland forest catches up Amazonas could see an uptick in forest loss With this expedition Houseboat Amazon created a baseline to track the health of the Juruá watershed Marsh and her team believe this data will be critical for improving management and conservation for the Vanzolini saki and other species in the region FEEDBACK: Use this form to send a message to the editor of this post The “fortress conservation” model is under pressure in East Africa as protected areas become battlegrounds over history and global efforts to halt biodiversity loss Mongabay’s Special Issue goes beyond the region’s world-renowned safaris to examine how rural communities and governments are reckoning with conservation’s colonial origins and trying to forge a path forward […] This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID 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Additional troubleshooting resources Country music is the lifeblood of Whiskey Riff and we pride ourselves on standing firmly in the corner of the independent artists and those few in the mainstream still doing it the right way or the superstars of today like Zach Bryan our finger is always on the pulse of true country music Whiskey Riff is THE unapologetic voice of the country music fan A RIFF on what makes the great outdoors…great “Country” is more than just a steel guitar and a way to speak your mind and not apologize for it On ‘Whiskey Riff Raff’ buckle up for an unfiltered and unapologetic take on country music Never good when a flying bird hits a flying bird A pilot in Brazil was forced to put his extensive training and expertise to the test when a vulture crashed into his single-engine plane while in flight The aircraft was carrying five passengers to Eirunepé from Envira (in Brazil’s Amazonas region) when the buzzard smashed through the cockpit’s front window Footage from inside the cockpit shows a sizable vulture flying off in the distance The aviator was only able to do so much to try and avoid the bird in mid-air The plane struck the buzzard (or did the buzzard strike the plane?) head-on and the large avian creature met its demise high in the sky After it slammed into the front glass and broke through the window – lifelessly hanging halfway inside and halfway outside the plane – it was the pilot’s job to make sure everyone aboard didn’t face a similar fate The flyboy reportedly blamed the mid-air meeting with the vulture on the waste facility that’s located in close proximity to the airport: This is the fault of the rubbish dump next to the airport which attracts an absurd number of vultures to the area.” the pilot was then tasked with landing the plane while a buzzard laid lifeless in the broken glass of the windshield It appears that one of its wings became jammed inside the cockpit thus keeping it in place even as high winds continued to hit it the pilot kept his composure and touched the aircraft safely down at the Eirunepe airport Someone that was on board the scary flight from Envira to Eirunepé was quoted with saying that they were afraid for their life after the bird had smashed through the front glass of the cockpit: “We thought we wouldn’t get out alive It’s a miracle the pilot managed to land with that right in his face.” unfortunate incident was very bizarre in nature and just goes to show that pilots often need to be prepared for anything and everything to happen It’s not everyday that a vulture crashes through your window an experienced flier should do everything they can to make sure they don’t another vulture’s next meal It’s still hard to believe that happened even with the footage that’s become available Shoutout to the pilot’s nerves of steel for staying calm and getting everyone in the plane safely back down to planet Earth The whole situation is very reminiscent of another close call with a bird busting the front glass of a plane that took place back in February. A crop duster in Ecuador had a condor smack right into his aircraft and blood from the big ol’ bird splattered everywhere The video from that incident is even more unsettling: WHISKEY RIFF RAFF PODCAST WHISKEY RIFF SHOP NEWSLETTER ABOUT US THE TEAM