About a week ago or so, we spent 4 days at a biodiversity research station on the Tiputini River in the Amazon Rainforest. The sheer number of species and amount of life around us was mind boggling. Never in my life have i seen so many types of birds that are all so wildly different, or seen a 6 inch wide spider and been told it was a "medium" one. We saw spider monkeys, squirrel monkeys, howler monkeys, sloths, macaws, toucans, tarantulas, geckos, and dozens of other creatures. At night we saw caimans, scorpions, massive scorpion spiders, lizards, tree frogs, things that simply don´t exist anywhere else in the world. I will definitely remember it as one of the most impacting experiences of my life. We met a national geographic photographer named Pete Oxford--google him. He takes pictures like a monster--and he had quite a bit to say about the Amazon and the threats it currently faces. He told us that, in ecuador, the only protected areas are national parks, and even national parks don´t have exclusive rights to their sub-surface terrain. On the way in and out of Tiputini, we saw camp after camp of oil companies, specifically Repsol, a company currently under majority Chinese ownership. Their cutting of the forest and burning of fossil fuels, creation of roads, building of bridges, and influx of workers has reduced primary tropical rainforest to secondary and tertiary forests with much less biodiversity and life. Correa has stated publicly his support of the Yasuni National Park, and his intention to prevent further exploitation of oil reserves that would harm the Amazon, but the future still remains uncertain. Hopefully in the coming years Ecuador can create legislation to better protect its unique natural treasures.
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