Another year, another clustur-fudge of deforestation and another critically endangered species of great ape. Last year, I shared 18 photos — from Madagascar’s tree tops to Lahad Datu’s hospital beds — to commemorate the end of 2018. This year, I made it to 2019 without a hospital bed in sight. But anyway, in what I’m considering making an annual tradition, here’s 2019 in 19(ish) photos. I’ve called it from mountaintops to wadi beds.
1. We started off in the Colombian Andes on a project finding out what happens when cattle pastures are left to regrow back into cloud forest. For me, this spelled a return to dung beetles—and the famous resurrection of my trusted Tupperware— this time to see what species could survive in young and old cloud forests recovering on cow farms.
2. But this team was bigger then just its dung beetle parts. We looked at birds, we looked at trees, we looked at carbon, we looked at soils—we even looked at orchids, to get a picture how fast different groups and components of ecosystems can recuperate on marginal cattle fields, if given half the chance.
3. Edicson, king of the orchids, was unswayable in his enthusiasm on this two-month trip. Come rain or nightfall, he would always be the last one back, hunting through the undergrowth, climbing up trees or disappearing up some cliff-face in search of new species of orchid.
4. But we also spent some wonderful weeks at the home of community leaders Sandra and Yasid. Here, we explored a little-visited tract of cloud forest previously under the control of guerrilla group FARC, which is now visited by a resident spectacled bear.
5. A few moments of silliness in rainforest waterfalls…
6. Some galloping…
7. And some kayaking in the llanos in search of Anaconda.
8. And then from Bogotá to Musandam, and onwards to Nothernmost Oman. Here, we were working with the Oman Botanic Gardens to try and track the distribution of some of Musandam’s rarest flora.
9. The landscape above might not look like it’s resplendent in flora. But you’d be surprised…
10. You wouldn’t be surprised at how hospitable and kind everyone is in Oman though—that’s as true as everybody says.
From the open skies of the Middle East, to the starlit vistas of the French alps, where I took my little brother on his first bivvy adventure way up high.
12. Then onwards to Northern Borneo, to continue our recently setup long-term project exploring how vine-cutting could speed up the recovery of some of the tropics’ most heavily logged rainforests.
13. We had some fun with bioacoustics, playing back recordings to calibrate audio-devices deployed throughout the forest understorey to catch birdsong.
14. And saw many creatures, both great and small.
15. There were some sad times also, like where the last Sumatran rhino in Malaysia perished in captivity, leaving as few as 30-80 left in the world, and possibly none on Borneo.
16. And (less so but still sad) where after many months in tropics, my machete broke in the UK (of all jungles!) while trying to do some gardening!
17. Then in late 2019, I fulfilled a long-term ambition to be published on the frontpage of Mongabay. I took a shoddy but proud screenshot of my story about plans to log and mine a rainforest covered island in Papua New Guinea…
18…And then set off for Southwest Ethiopia to find out more about whether I could focus my PhD research in the area…
19. The answer was yes, and now I am scrambling through some last minute details for a field season in Southwest Ethiopia in the coming weeks, exploring the potential benefits to people and wildlife of forest restoration.
Which brings us full circle back to Cambridge, the place I’ve been working at and getting to know over the past few months of my PhD. It might be treeless, but I do love it…
And anyway, the rainforest beckons…
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