GVI Amazon News

Phase 094 October – December 2009

For some people the realization
immediately strikes them, for others it
settles in after a few days. How ever a
person takes it, their response is always
the same, “I can not believe I’m actually
here, in the Amazon Rainforest.”
hour bumpy bus journey and finally a
motorised canoe. The rainforest we live
and work in is an established reserve;
protected from logging, poaching and
any other types of distasteful actions
against the forest.

Whether you have chosen to sweat,
bleed and laugh out an expedition with
GVI‘s Ecuadorian Amazon Rainforest
team for five, or ten weeks, you’ll find
that when it has all ended, you’ll wish to
travel back in time, to the beginning and
start again. At GVI Amazon, you
become an essential unit to a team; an
unstoppable international research force!
This phase (094) our team’s
international richness was pretty high,
representing the United States of
America, Ireland, Australia, Scotland,
Wales, Canada, England, Belgium and
Sweden, Ja!
Side by side in a canoe, the first thing
volunteers see as they approach base
camp is a small wooden yellow sign that
reads ‘Bosque Protector Yachana, Area
Protegida, Estacion GVI’ (Yachana
Forest Reserve, Protected Area, GVI
Station). It stands high up on the river
bank, behind it a wall of jungle,
welcoming all who visit GVI’s little
port.

Base camp is hidden deep in the

Ecuadorian Amazon Rainforest, and
approximately 25 meters up from the
banks of the River Napo. To get here,
it’s a two day journey from Quito,
overnighting at a jungle lowlands town
called Tena. For the last leg, it’s a three

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The canoe driver revs the engine as the
canoe slowly bumps the clay rocks that
make up the GVI port. Volunteers grab
their belongings and make their way off
the swaying canoe onto the port’s
slippery rocks. This is where the phase
begins for everyone and there is always
a look of nervous anticipation on many a
new face.
Like every other week spent at GVI
Amazon, the first week is packed with
activity and adjustments; orientations,
jungle awareness, Emergency First
Response training, tropical ecology
walks and talks, and an introduction to
the overall structure of camp life awaits
the volunteers.
Volunteers join this expedition because
they share a passion for the rainforest.
Here the forest is king. It provides all
and can take all. People are attracted to
the boundless power of the jungle. At
GVI Amazon we experience this power
on a daily basis. Our walks and countless
hours spent collecting data in the field,
allow us to immerse ourselves in this
incredible environment. There is no
better way to learn and understand the
systems of the rainforest, than by
actually living inside of it.
Conservation is our aim. In phase 094 of
GVI Amazon we have been running six
research projects; including amphibian
and reptile surveys, both pitfall trappings
and night time transects, butterfly
surveys, dung beetles, understory mist
netting, bird road transect surveys, and a
short term Screaming Piha survey.
Together the staff and volunteers who
run these projects do so to increase the
knowledge of the area and conserve this
part of the Amazon we call home.
On the community side we have been
developing relations with the
surrounding local communities and
attempting to reach out and help in some
form or other. In Puerto Rico and Puerto
Salazar, this has included teaching
English to the kids in the local school
and also working alongside them in
mingas, (which are days when whole
communities get together to undertake
big tasks). GVI volunteers make up a
good percentage of the work force on
these days.
Life at base camp is guaranteed to be
different to anything that most
volunteers have ever experienced before.
It functions on simplistic and
minimalistic values. There is no
electricity, so that counts out
refrigeration, or lighting. The food is
fresh (for the most part) and includes no
meat, but volunteers do not go hungry
with three meals a day; plenty of beans
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and lots of rice. Everyone becomes part
of a hardworking team, sharing the daily
chores to keep camp tidy and
maintained.
Days typically begin early with the bell
ringing us out of slumber (unless it’s
your turn to cook breakfast, then you’re
the one ringing that bell) at 6am. For the
first few days there’s always some
volunteers who come to the Comedor for
breakfast looking a bit confused,
seeming to have forgotten where they
are. Breakfast is devoured and almost
straight away everyone prepares to head
out into the field on surveys or
community work; checking amphibian
or dung beetle traps, vegetation
mapping, quite possibly checking the
mist nets or even some free style birding.
Not forgetting the sessions out in the
forest with the reserve ranging helping
maintain the reserve to the standards
required by the Ecuadorian Ministry of
the Environment, or heading off to
Puerto Rico to teach an hour of English.
Lunch is served at 12:30. Most plates are
polished clean by 12:33. Second
helpings are called by the cooks and a
stampede of people from all around the
world line up for more. Typically an
hour or so after lunch, staff lead more
afternoon surveys, with the help of the
volunteers they head back out into the
field for more exciting research.
Dinner times are enjoyed by candlelight,
and everyone spends a few hours
chatting about the day’s events and the
amazing wildlife encounters. Once or
twice a week, under the cover of
darkness, staff lead volunteers on trails
and in streams seeing what nocturnal
activity they can seek out.
Weekends bring a bit of variety of
events. On both days camp duties must
be done and this is spread out amongst
all staff and volunteers for each day.
Saturday mornings nearly always has a
small trip to the local, weekly market of
Agua Santa. Extra weekend treats are
bought, like eggs, bread and cheese.
Volunteers also have the opportunity to
enjoy a refreshing cold drink. It is also
where the Saturday night beer supply is
bought. Saturdays nights are for fun and
games. A few well earned beers are
enjoyed by all and depending on how
much energy everyone has, they share a
few dance moves, sport some fancy
dress, snap a few pictures for blackmail,
and laugh a lot.
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Sundays are more like the day of rest,
but there is the option for action for
those who can’t get enough. Breakfast is
bread and eggs! In the afternoon, there is
normally a football game, either down
the road at Puerto Rico, or up and across
river to the Yachana Colegio Tecnico, to
play with the local students. A visit to
the Yachana Lodge is a must if we are
on that side of the river to drink a few
fresh, chilled, fruity batidos (fruit
milkshakes).
094 was an incredibly successful phase;
396 amphibian individuals were
captured and identified in the pitfall
traps and on night transects, 2,388 dung
beetles were captured in the baited pitfall
traps and 121 butterflies were captured
in traps alone. 127 individuals of birds
were caught during all the mist netting
sessions and 19 species were added to
the Yachana Reserve Species List. The
new additions included nine species of
dung beetles, three species of birds, five
species of butterfly and two snakes never
before been seen in the Yachana
Reserve. These additions to the reserve’s
list are promising and represent that our
reserve is in a progressing state; that this
protection is proving to be beneficial.
Volunteers and staff participated in four
mingas in the surrounding communities
and taught 17 English lessons, the
majority of which were down in the
closest local community of Puerto Rico,
but we also had a handful of
introductory lesson at a community a
little further beyond Puerto Rico, called
Puerto Salazar.
On a side note, the side trips to Hector’s
Island in the first five weeks and Yasuni
National Park in the second five weeks
proved to be a highlight for most
volunteers. Experiencing more locations
down the river Napo, seeing more
diverse wildlife, like the monkeys on
Hector’s Island and the many parrots,
parakeets and macaws that visit the clay
licks daily in Yausni, along with the
fascinating insights into indigenous
culture that Hector, our local guide,
divulges, creates a more rounded picture
of the Amazon that the GVI volunteers
have made their home during the
previous weeks.
The phase was rounded off with a get
together with the community of Puerto
Rico. GVI Amazon cooked food and
came up with a bunch of team games to
get everyone involved. It was testament
to the work that everyone had put into
the community relations throughout the
previous three months and a rewarding
day enjoyed by everyone involved.