Day Three - Toads, flies, skies and taps

Today was another amazing day in the Amazon. Worked this morning, had Spaguetti al Busto in town, massive portion of wicked veg and white sauce pasta, down through Puerto Viejo to the boatbuilders and a walk in the afternoon.

Chris Kirkby, Fauna Forever Founder, draws Puerto Maldonado (not to scale:)

Spotted a beautiful fly caught in a web by the window in my room at www.faunaforever.org
 

Giles Crosse

A small thing, but all of us share the will with which we cling on to life...

Giles Crosse

Giles Crosse

Glancing at this little fellow set me thinking about the similarities all life shares and how we all ultimately inhabit the same space. At lunch we spoke about how a certain tree in the Amazon apparently has no life for a space of metres around its trunk.

It's only when you look more closely you will notice the Fire Ants.

These small fellows will be zipping up and down the trunk. Living inside the tree, they work in a symbiotic pattern, defending it against attack from all comers, and in return they receive a cosy little space in which to live.

Such symbiotic examples are mirrored throughout the natural world, yet unfortunately the use of pesticides, intensive agriculture practices and unsustainable consumption is currently setting our species at odds with the planet that gives us all the air, food, light and water we will ever need.

Equally conflicting levels of consumption between Western and less developed societies illustrate the disregard for balance we display within our own species. Perhaps more time spent watching a little fly hanging on to life could remind us of how tenuous our lives might become should we continue to abuse the resources nature supplies.

Giles Crosse