Word: rain
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Except for the few of us in the camp, there are no other people within a radius of 50 miles, nor is it likely that any people have even set foot in most of this land within the past thousand years. There are plenty of other species in evidence: rain forests contain a disproportionate share of the world's wealth of living things. Suriname's is the least troubled rain forest in existence, harboring 200 known mammal species (including monkeys in trees), 674 bird species, 99 amphibian species, more than 5,000 plant species, rivers, rocks, heat, darkness...
...traits fuse with the activist to create a formidable force for the preservation of forest life, which needs protectors. Nearly 60% of the world's tropical rain forests have been lost, and what remains is under extreme pressure from logging and human population growth. More than 90% of the forests in the U.S. have been logged at least once. And once a forest is cut down, many of the living things it has harbored will be driven into extinction...
...frequently and cut my hand on a rock, but eventually I turn clumsiness to my advantage by forcing everyone to slow down. I am seeing the jungle for the first time. Here alone are 300 species of trees. They are at once the pillars and the superintendents of the rain forest, the frame of the house and its chief occupants. The spiny understory palm trees make baskets from branches growing out of their trunks, which become compost machines for falling leaves, which in turn sustain the trees. Since the soil is not deep enough for roots to penetrate, the larger...
...tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, according to Mittermeier, he would be better off. He tells me that the scariest sound he ever heard in the rain forest was the explosive crack of a dead trunk, followed by a rush of plummeting branches so loud it might have been a storm...
...life is everywhere around you. I feel a part of it. At the same time, I realize that I am just one more form of life in a very complex system. This is as close to a religious experience as I get--which is why, when I see a rain forest being bulldozed to make a few dollars for a logging company, I feel like I'm watching Notre Dame or the Louvre being hit with a wrecking ball. It's strange, but wherever I am in the forest, I feel that I'm home...