Amazon rainforest hit by surge in small-scale deforestation, study finds
https://news.mongabay.com/2018/02/amazon-rainforest-hit-by-surge-in-small-scale-deforestation-study-finds/?utm_source=Mongabay+Email+Alerts&utm_campaign=ab7ad60990-mailchimp_peru_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e1ea8b5f35-ab7ad60990-77138285
Amazon rainforest hit by surge in small-scale deforestation, study finds
news.mongabay.com
Deadline approaching! Submit your organized session/workshop proposals to "Belém +30", XVI Congress of the International Society of Ethnobiology by February 20. Individual paper/poster submissions open March 1 and close April 5. Online submissions and more information https://www.ise2018belem.com
BARRANQUERO BIRD LANDS AT THE BARRANQUERO CAFE (AND ONLINE)
Last year I walked into a new hip coffee shop in State College called the Barranquero Café and noticed photos and paintings of a long-tailed bird I recognized as the blue-crowned mot mot – an insect catching bird I’d seen in the Birds of Peru book I’d been perusing with some Amazonian artisans.
It was great to meet the Barranquero’s owner Susan Jermusyk and learn that she gave her shop the local name for this beautiful bird that frequents the Colombian highlands where her coffee comes from. Beyond inviting us to sell a variety of our crafts in the café two times last year, we agreed to commission our talented artisan partners in Peru to weave a model of this bird she could sell in her café year-round. \
On my next trip south, I gave photos of the bird to artisans from the village of San Francisco on the Marañon River, and six months later four artisans showed me their prototypes. Susan thought they were good, but the orange breast of the Amazonian type didn’t seem quite like the bird she knew. She gave me a few photos she had taken showing the yellow breast of the Colombian variety which I shared with our Peruvian artisan friends.
I was thrilled that Susan and her staff were excited to see the newest barrranqueros – especially the expression in their eyes and black spot below the neck. We are both happy that this trans-American fair-trade collaboration can benefit local people in Peru and Colombia.
Please visit the Barranquero Café at 324 E Calder Way in downtown State College to buy one of these unique ornaments and enjoy some tasty Colombian coffee and food.
You can also find a few barranquero ornaments online at: https://amazon-forest-store2.myshopify.com/products/fair-trade-christmas-tree-blue-crowned-mot-mot-ornament-orbp46c. See these and other fair-trade ornaments and crafts for sale at our online Amazon Forest Store at: www.amazonforeststore.org.
Learn more about the blue-crowned mot mot (Momotus coeruliceps) and hear its call at: https://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/Species-Account/nb/species/bucmot1/overview.
680000 acres of Amazon rainforest may be lost to Peru’s new roads Check out this story from Mongabay News about two proposed roads that would threaten huge areas of the Peruvian Amazon. https://news.mongabay.com/2018/01/680000-acres-of-amazon-rainforest-may-be-lost-to-perus-new-roads/?utm_source=Mongabay+Email+Alerts&utm_campaign=d891496145-mailchimp_peru_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e1ea8b5f35-d891496145-77138285
680000 acres of Amazon rainforest may be lost to Peru’s new roads
news.mongabay.com
PERU DECLARES NEW NATIONAL PARK IN NORTHERN PERUVIAN AMAZON Amazing news about the creation of a national park in Loreto near the area where CACE has been working with native communities in the Ampiyacu River region. https://news.mongabay.com/2018/01/peru-declares-a-huge-new-national-park-in-the-amazon/?utm_source=Mongabay+Email+Alerts&utm_campaign=25fd65a4fe-mailchimp_peru_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e1ea8b5f35-25fd65a4fe-77138285
Peru declares a huge new national park in the Amazon
LORETO REGION, Peru — Starting yesterday, 868,927 hectares of forest in Peru’s Loreto Region will be protected through the creation of Yaguas National Park, comprising a mega-diverse ecosystem that, until…
news.mongabay.com
MARVELOUS SPATULETAIL HUMMINGBIRD - ORNAMENT FOR SALE
The Center for Amazon Community Ecology (CACE) has just received a limited batch of colorful Marvelous Spatuletail Hummingbird ornaments for sale online in our online Amazon Forest Store at: https://amazon-forest-store2.myshopify.com/products/fair-trade-christmas-tree-hummingbird-woven-ornament-orbp43. Proceeds create sustainable livelihoods for native artisans and support health, education, and conservation in their communities.
These ornaments were hand-made from chambira palm fiber by 17-old artisan Heriberto Vela from the village of San Francisco on the Maranon River in association with CACE.
The marvelous spatuletail (Loddigesia mirabilis) lives in small regions of the northern Peruvian Andes. The male uses its tail feathers to court the female of his choice. This hummingbird is highly endangered due to destruction of its habitat, hunting, and its its inherently small population.
Read more about efforts to protect this and other rare birds at https://abcbirds.org/bird/marvelous-spatuletail/. Thanks to David Cook Wildlife Photography for permission to use his photo of this bird in the wild. See original at: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5a/46/4c/5a464cb9a5fab1dbc46d9133e7b0a867.jpg
AROMATIC SOAP AND AYAHUASCA AT BELLEFONTE VICTORIAN CHRISTMAS SHOW Sales of our Amazon handicrafts at the show yesterday were steady but slow. Down times gave me a chance to chat a bit with my vendor neighbors Bethany Carter and Heather Emminger who were selling their cold pressed soaps in their BelleNaturals line. I was impressed by their extensive knowledge and use of a variety of essential oils in their products. I was very happy that Heather bought and agreed to show off the necklace made by Peruvian artisan Damaris Esther Panaifo Coral that she got from the CACE booth that featured a round piece of moonstone, ayahuasca vine, and a pair of tiger eye stones. The moonstone looks clear when held to the light, but it beautifully reflects other colors behind it.
ORNAMENT CRITTERS AT TAIT TREE FARM Here are four of the dozens of Christmas tree ornaments available at Tait Tree Farm in Centre Hall, PA. Come to the farm to cut your own tree and give a loving home to one of our unique animal ornaments made by artisans from the Peruvian Amazon. Critters in these pics are: Peruvian striped owl, hoatzin, chestnut eared aracari, and two-toed sloth.
HANG A FRIENDLY SLOTH ONTO YOUR CHRISTMAS TREE FAIR TRADE SLOTH ORNAMENT NOW AVAILABLE FROM THE AMAZON FOREST STORE https://amazon-forest-store2.myshopify.com/admin/products/321163460637
It was a mystery to me why our sloth Christmas tree ornaments sold so well at music festivals this summer. They are undeniably a rather strange cuddly creature, but perhaps their popularity was partly due to a sloth playing a (slow) worker in motor vehicle department office in the movie Zootopia. thanks for supporting our artisan partners from the communities of San Francisco and Amazonas who make these cool ornaments out of chambira palm fiber
IT'S GIVING TUESDAY - THANKS VERY MUCH FOR SUPPORTING OUR WORK TO SUPPORT ARTISANS AND FOREST CONSERVATION IN THE PERUVIAN Visit www.AmazonAlive.Net to make a donation to the Center for Amazon Community Ecology. We will receive matching funds from GlobalGving through midnight tonight. With sincere thanks, Campbell
ARTISANS SEPARATING CHAMBIRA FIBER After artisans strip leaflets from chambira "cogollos" in the forest. In the comfort of their homes (or in this case in the artisan house in Chino), they grab the bottom end in between their big and fourth toe, make a nick at the top with a little knife and then pull down on the long strong fiber. This is the prime part of the leaflet for making quality handicrafts. They also separate out the secondary part (carapa), palito (spine), and waste material (bagasso).
HARVESTING AND WEIGHING CHAMBIRA PALM LEAVES After morning introductions at the Artisan Leadership workshop in Chino, we took a large peque peque (motorized dugout canoe) about half an hour upriver to a path that took us to the forest fields of three artisans. Walter showed the group how he attaches a saw to a pole and then taught Francisca how to use this to harvest a chambira "cogollo" (leaf spear). While artisans have traditionally used a machete to harvest these, the women in Chino was one of the first groups to use a pruning saw since it allow the artisan to cut this leaf without damaging the ones next to it. Each of the three small groups harvested 3 cogollos and then weighed them whole before stripping off the leaflets that they brought back to the village to process. Note that Graciela is holding the upper end of the cogollo with a shirt to protect her hand from the spines on the main pole. As usual, Francisca showed how to do every task with a smile. I'll discuss how these measurements will help the artisans. I hope these photos can help other people realize the amount of work fand care involved in producing a woven handicraft even before the weaving begins.
ARTISAN LEADERSHIP WORKSHOP - DAY 1 We began our most recent artisan leadership workshop in Chino by dividing participants from different communities into small mixed groups to share their knowledge about the best ways to harvest chambira. It was fascinating to hear about their approaches and identify important things they did not know - such as how many new leaf spears grow on one tree per year. We then went to the forest to do some harvesting. But before getting down to business, two artisans split open a mature macambo fruit and snacked on its seeds.
MEET ESTELITA - CREATIVE ARTISAN, LEADER, MOM AND BODEGA OWNER Meet Estelita Loayza Ihuma. I met her first as one of the artisans from the village of Chino on the Tahuayo River that makes the beautiful chambira palm fiber baskets. In recent years, though, I have gotten to know her better as the President of the artisan association from her community. Many artisan groups elect presidents, but I have never met anyone in this role who has done so much and earned so much trust from her fellow artisans as Estelita. When she joined our Artisan Leadership Program workshops last year, it was a marvel to watch how quickly she also earned the respect of artisans from all of the communities. She articulately discussed how the Chino artisans were in a similar position to other artisan groups ten years ago and how they have progressed since then. They were working primarily as individuals until an opportunity came along to sell more crafts to visitors from an eco-tourism lodge. Estelita helped her fellow artisans improve their craft making, brought them together as a cooperative group, helped figure out how to shift husbands from being adversaries to advocates for the women artisans, took on quality control for the group, and become a pioneer in improving management of chambira palm trees. As Estelita remains a positive force in her community, I hope that CACE can work with Estelita to strengthen artisan groups in other places. Oh yes, in addition to making crafts and guiding the artisan association, she is a mom to a cool grade-school boy and runs a little bodega (general store) on the ground floor of her house with her husband.
BEE VISITING BLUE FLOWER After I'd finished buying crafts from the Chino artisans in their new artisan house, I found a spot outside that I thought would make a nice natural backdrop to take pictures of the artisans with their crafts - this meant a place with interesting plants and even lighting. After I was done taking pics of Madita, I looked around a saw that a few bees were making the rounds of pretty blue flowers. I don't know what kind of bee or flower they were, but I always liike to take shots of pollinators in action. I like seeing how the blurr of the wings shows that the bee doesn't just flap them up and down - they can swirl them around to hover or go anywhere they want.
MADITA AND HER CHAMBIRA CRAFTS One of the first artisans I met in Chino ten years ago was Madita Sinarahua. She showed me how she harvests chambira palm leaves, prepares the fiber, and weaves them into beautiful baskets and other crafts. She is displaying three of the ones I bought at my visit to Chino in late September.
