Thanks for yrs, Martyn. Indeed, I've been recording in the tropical
rainforests of the Americas for almost 20 years, now and have found
them to be greatly changed...if the altered biophony is any
indication. There are still a few places left. But they are getting
fewer by the hour. If anyone has an interest in any of this stuff,
they'd best get their collective asses on a plane pretty soon. Kat
and I borrowed against the equity in our house to make this trip.
That's how important it was to us.
We knew the limitations in the Galapagos (which is actually being
handled pretty well, all things considered). But the upper Amazon
Basin is another story altogether.
Recommendation: get to those places that still remain sooner rather than la=
ter.
BTW, there is a before/after old growth forest logging comparison on
the CD that accompanies my new book, Wild Soundscapes.
Bernie
>Have you been to these places before Bernie? I'm quite interested how the
>biophony sounded before hand and the amount of damage that is evident over=
a
>space of time, I for one cant get my hat on the amount of damage we as man
>are doing to this planet, I can not picture roosters sounding off in a rai=
n
>forest! What the hell are we doing! For someone who is so passionate I bet
>this hurts like hell?
>You know, ever since I was a kid I dreamed about visiting the rain forests
>of central America, being a horticulturist, it was always my dream to see
>flora in its natural state, my love of all wildlife went hand in hand, I
>remember when I was about 7 years of age, looking at a picture of a Dodo a=
nd
>thinking, how can a species become wiped out like that, not one anywhere o=
n
>this planet? Now look at us 40 years on from there, I still have not visit=
ed
>Amazonia and thousands of species have been wiped out along with the flora
>to go with it!
>All that will be left is Zoo's with buttons to press with "this was the
>sound of a Puma" etc!
>Sad for all.
>
>I would love to hear some comparisons of your work down there mate.
>
>
>Martyn
>http://www.naturesound.org
>
>
>From: Wild Sanctuary
>Sent: Friday, February 06, 2004 2:38 PM
>To:
>Subject: [Nature Recordists] Galapagos/Rio Napo Ecuador trip summary
>
>GALAPAGOS/ECUADOR RAINFOREST TRIP REPORT
>
>SECURITY AND EQUIPMENT - before leaving, I made a list of all
>equipment in both English and Spanish and presented it to security
>and customs at each point. The equipment was broken down into its
>constituent parts and hand-carried in a small (8"x 10"x 16" or 3.2cm
>x 4cm x 6.4cm) in size. That included an M-S system with tripod,
>preamp, Rykote windscreen, batteries, 10m of cable; a pair of ECM55s,
>a hydrophone (w/ 10m cable) and miscellaneous connectors and wires
>and 12 DAT tapes. Result: not a single question or problem at any
>point in the trip.
>
>GALAPAGOS - Week 1. Wonderful but frustrating. The Ecuador National
>Park regulations specifies that every journey to any of the islands
>requires a licensed guide and that the trail markers are sacred. One
>is not allowed to leave the marked path. Since there are about 75,000
>visitors/year, none of whom are allowed to camp or visit sites
>unattended, they are hauled to each island by boats pulsed on
>schedule to arrive at every site. Visitors are then ferried to a
>beach or landing site (reminded me of the Normandy D-Day landing) and
>pulsed along the marked trails to see whatever can be seen. And
>there's lots to be seen but it's obviously difficult to record with
>so many folks clicking cameras and exclaiming at the wonders of a
>blue-footed booby or albatross or tortoise. Kat and I hired our own
>private guide to help mitigate the situation (who knows when we'd
>have a chance to return) and we were able to get away from the
>madding crowds at least for short (20 min) periods of time now and
>then. I also left earlier in the mornings than the visitors on our
>boat (and other boats) so that I had some quiet time to record. We
>discovered only too late that we could have got a permit to leave the
>trails and wander off (with a guide, of course) had we known in
>advance that that was possible. So in 7 days and nights, I got only a
>few short soundscapes amounting to a little over 4 hours of material
>of reasonable (but usable) quality where normally, I would have
>expected to get three times that much or more.
>
>RIO NAPO - Week 2 - is an equatorial rainforest river on the eastern
>side of the Andes SE of Quito, Ecuador. A tributary to the Amazon and
>part of the Amazon Basin watershed, the Ecuadorian govt has run an
>oil pipeline along the river with pumping stations every 10 - 15 km.
>Also, the Quechua have been allotted land within former rainforest
>reserves, which they now farm. Slash and burn is the manner in which
>the forest is tamed and a thick layer of smoke hangs everywhere over
>the areas we visited along the river. At dawn, one hears roosters
>crowing instead of the four or five species of monkeys that once
>inhabited the place. Not one monkey sound was heard in the wild even
>though we were there for a week and I walked alone some 6 or 7 km
>into the forest late one afternoon with nothing by my recorder and a
>hammock. Reason: the mammals have been mostly poached and hunted out
>almost to extinction in that area. All ones hears are insects, a few
>birds (hunted, as well), and frogs. In two days of old growth forest
>hiking, not a single mammal (normally one would expect to see
>peccary, capybara, howler and other monkeys, puma, etc.) was seen or
>heard where formerly there were many. I did manage to get some
>recordings, but the biophony is surely altered and everything sounds
>stressed to me.
>
>A old shaman we visited asked one gal in our group (a noted healer)
>to do a ceremony for him in exchange for one he did for her. When she
>asked what pain he wished to be treated, he pointed to his heart and
>said (in Quechua) "My heart hurts."
>
>Bernie Krause
>
>Wild Sanctuary, Inc.
>P. O. Box 536
>Glen Ellen, California 95442-0536
>Tel: (707) 996-6677
>Fax: (707) 996-0280
>http://www.wildsanctuary.com
>
>
--
Wild Sanctuary, Inc.
P. O. Box 536
Glen Ellen, California 95442-0536
Tel: (707) 996-6677
Fax: (707) 996-0280
http://www.wildsanctuary.com
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
|