“…But Balsa is like a weed…”

Tags

balsa, balsa industry, deforestation, kinkajou, ochroma, wind turbines

Healthy young balsa soaring to the skies.

Balsa’s fluffy ‘kapok’

Male becard with Balsa fluff for nest.

Female becard with Balsa fluff for nest.

Pale-legged Hornero (Pacific) nest in balsa tree.

How valuable is the balsa tree to nature?  Should I allow the continued felling of these trees (for the wind-turbine industry) to bother me?  Many people shrug and say, “Balsa is like a weed, it grows back fast.”

Yes, but —

Today I will smile and delegate the defense of balsas to National Geographic:

I will always treasure the first time I saw a kinkajou raiding a balsa of its nectar – a memory that will last ‘a lifetime.’

This kinkajou was raiding a Jackfruit tree at Poza Honda during October Big Weekend 2021.

What is the threshold?  How much is too much before the flora and fauna struggle to survive?

National Geographic’s story about the Balsa research in Panama can be found here:  Open all Night.

Sometimes photos become a much-needed spokesperson for the balsas.

Squirrel Cuckoo in Balsa

Golden Olive Woodpecker in Balsa

Buff-throated Saltator in Balsa

Squirrel Cuckoo in Balsa

Gray-lined Hawk in Balsa

Black Vultures, Cissus Vine and Balsa

Bananaquit in Balsa

“Lisa’s Friend the Balsa”  -I always wondered, “What made that hole?

“Lisa’s Friendship Tree, the Balsa” with Cissus (Grape family) vine.

“Lisa’s Friendship Tree, the Balsa,” felled then discarded.

“Lisa’s Friendship Tree, the Balsa”

The tree became the poster child for the show in 2019, and the present exposition (Step into my World) at Museo Portoviejo.

“The Muir Tree” and the balsa fragments.

“The Friendship Tree of Life” (Acrylic)

The Groove-billed Anis (below) inspected the felled balsas in the not-so-protected protected forest of Poza Honda.

Poza Honda Ecuador

Comrades of the Friendship Tree of Life.

Do trees bleed?  This one did.

How healthy is ‘Green Energy’ if it desecrates a vanishing ecosystem?

How healthy is all of that smoke?

Piece by piece, more fragmentation, like whittling away patches of skin.

My friend the balsa.

Poza Honda Ecuador

Internet search:  “How many balsa trees are used to make one wind turbine?”

I did not expect to get instant answers.

A few minutes before that search began, an article mentioned Green Energy, which raised my hackles when I read, “…Earth’s electricity needs could be met 11 times over if we filled our oceans with wind turbines…”

“Fill our oceans with wind turbines?”                                                                  At the cost of deforesting Ecuador and other areas of the Neotropics?

(Lisa’s eyes have never been so wide!)

Between Tosagua and Bahia de Caraquez/Ecuador

My search for data about wind turbine construction sailed me straight to recently published articles about this ‘green energy’ affecting Ecuador.

A new site to me – ‘Open Democracy’ – asked in a story published today, “What has the destruction of balsa trees in the Amazon rainforest got to do with the wind power industry in Europe?

Sadly, more than you think.“

That story is here:  A green paradox: Deforesting the Amazon for wind energy in the Global North

I sometimes refer to an expanding group of concerned people as the ‘Davids’ who are building strength against the Goliaths of the planet.

Giovanni Ruiz doesn’t wait for an event, he picks up trash when he sees it.

Another recent story in Spanish from el Pais:

https://elpais.com/planeta-futuro/2021-11-24/los-molinos-de-viento-deforestan-el-amazonas.html?ssm=TW_CC

And one more story of interest from January 2021 breaks down the details.  Wind-watch.org shares the story from the Economist.  A worrying windfall – The wind-power boom set off a scramble for balsa wood in Ecuador 

The open Democracy video, is well worth the time to learn more about the dilemma:

As the midnight hour approaches, I hold you all in my heart.  Thank you for caring and for your empathy.  The earth thanks you.  The balsas thank you. The kinkajous thank you as well.

Lets all be quiet now so that the Kinkajous can dine in peace!

Goodnight, Kinkajou!  Goodnight, World.

Did You Know?

Tags

andean coots, art museo portoviejo, chevron, cinnamon teal, deforestation, donziger, Lisa Brunetti art, slate-colored coots, step into my world, yellow-billed pintail

Portoviejo /Manabi/Ecuador –

Another artist spending time near The Friendship Tree of Life. (Acrylic)

The show, Step into My World, is going well.  We discussed having a basket for people to discard their problems before they stepped into the world of art, photography and Augmented Reality.  I never dreamed that visitors would take it so seriously.   Some paused and touched their heads, closed their eyes and then placed their invisible burdens into the basket.   Others paused at the guest book and scribbled -sometimes for five or more minutes – on sheets of paper, folded those sheets and placed them in the basket.   What trust!  Each day I take the folded papers home and – as promised – dispose those private worries.

My staple gun ran out of staples, and I took the empty package to the store to be sure I bought the right replacement.

What a surprise to find that the new ones did not fit the staple gun!  The old package is to the right; the new one on the left.   Do you know the reason?

I had no idea that ‘Heavy Duty’ staples were different from Light-duty ones.   Alas, so far here in Portoviejo I have not been able to find light duty ones.  It’s almost easier to buy a new staple gun!

I think that every single person in an hour’s radius of Portoviejo knows the man in the photo. Antonio Pico, who lives near Ayacucho, stopped in to view the show.

Sometimes one person arrives, other times a cluster of  three or four.   An archaeologist here – an artist there – a friend to stop in and ask, ‘How’s it going?’

Since I would be at the museo most every day, I volunteered to be their first volunteer, after a thought-provoking visit with Alexandra Cevallos and her friends who drove over from Cruzita.   “Is there a ‘Friends of the Museum’ group here?” they asked.

Hmmm.  With budget cuts, the museum could use all the friends it can get!    The directors seemed relieved that I would be upstairs to receive any visitors, which allows them to stay focused on their daily tasks.  They set up a corner desk at the entrance to the show, and when no one is visiting, I work on art.  Today, however I’m working on this post!

Time for a brief ‘serious’ note.  This interactive map should show a timelapse view of tree loss for the past ten years.   It’s set for Ecuador, but it can easily expand to cover the entire world – or maybe it already does that when someone opens the link.  It’s sobering:   GlobalForestWatch.

Gathering nesting material (Andean Coot/Slate-colored Coot)

In July and August I made many half-hour drives to observe a pair of Slate-colored (Andean) Coots raising a family near Portoviejo.  Their presence is abnormal, and with three half-grown young ones, they nested again in a small cattail lined pond.

July 9, 2021

Since little is known about their behavior on the western side of the country (they normally live in the Andes) I visited the site often and parked – with the owner’s permission’- on a small empty lot that overlooked the nesting site.

The adults were extremely brava while sharing the nest building tasks, and were equally brava while sharing incubation sessions.   Their behavior amused me, and I soon learned by their behavior when they were about to chase  any potential threat to their young ones!

This slideshow captures a lot of that behavior:

Where to Start?

Tags

24d pesticide, deforestation, protected forests

Nice idea, but the legs seemed way too weak to support the big frog. It just needed some TLC!

“But I did not want art like this;  I asked for green things and frogs and butterflies….”

That’s what my friend and former neighbor Marcos said when I congratulated him on the new art on their garden wall.

The art was much better than what was previously there – a sterile concrete wall;  he explained that he wanted to bring the outdoors inside, and he was disappointed in the results.

I normally dodge a request to repaint what another artist painted, but after listening to his story, and witnessing his somber mood when critiquing the art, I agreed to help via compromise;  working with what was there, I’d take the art a few more steps forward.

As I worked, I shared with Marcos and Juanita that it’s often difficult for an artist to grasp what the other person wants.. it’s like stepping into a dream that belongs to someone else.   If the artist has never painted life-like images, and they specialize in another style, it’s difficult to do the work.  No longer is the art springing forth from the soul; it’s tempered by thinking about what the other person wants.  With one eye on the work, the other is tweaked toward the ‘client’ – so there’s already a problem to stay focused and dedicated to the best job.

It was well done – well painted, and the colors were pleasant;   the person who painted it was no longer in the country and he doubted if she’d be back.

While working on the frog, I noted that Marcos had other plans; he wanted the ‘window’ to be wider, and with a few swipes of paint, the old image vanished…  uh-oh, my tasks just doubled in size!  He seemed thrilled with the progress, I handed him brushes and paint, and slowly his entire spirit transformed.    Enjoy the slide show:

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I helped until time to leave with the final load of items from the apartment and make that seven-hour drive back to Poza Honda.    Unfortunately the trees had not magically grown back, and the  area had been somewhat cleared; every so often someone burned piles of debris, and each time I was lucky to be upwind from the burns.

One burn went out of control and came very close to where I live. The image below was taken from the dam as I drove for an internet session. Want to find the house? Just follow the smoke. 😦

When I returned, a young man stopped me at the dam gates. He showed me a video on his phone and explained that it was his mother’s property. He seemed quite remorseful about the fire that continued to burn – and creep closer to the house.

Inward Reflections and Retrospections

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"The Muir Tree", deforestation, incubation time for growth, our sick planet, retrospection

Costa Rica aerial image from 2012 – View of Playas San Miguel, Bejuco, Corazalito and Islita.

“TO go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson – from Nature

Today a friend shared news of a New-Year’s Day airline commuter crash in Costa Rica. The Corazalito airstrip was near where I once lived, and there are many great memories of that unique little welcome center, complete with thatched-roof ‘reception shack’ with original art on its facade. I’ve experienced those turbulent winds that often announce the change of the seasons, winds that grasp a pilot’s attention as well as the passengers’ attentions.   Although I did not know any of the 12 people who died this past week, the news makes me reflect on the shattered lives of the families and loved ones – while reminding us that we only have this moment.

That news put me in a deeper reflective mood than normal, one that prompted this poor attempt to explain what’s been percolating in my psyche over the past few months.

(You have the right to excuse yourself from this reading room; those who choose to hang with me, I hope that the following makes sense…)
..

Weather, Extinctions and Round-the-World Deforestations

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climate change, deforestation, endangered species, eulogy for a planet, extinctions, reforestation, silent spring rachel carson, what can one person do

 

Ecuador’s Powerful Woodpecker (Campephilus pollens) resembles North America’s possibly-extinct Ivory-billed Woodpecker.  What will it take to awaken mankind that preserving and restoring the habitat has reached critical importance?

” The ivory-bill is so iconic: big, beautiful, mysterious—a symbol of everything that’s gone wrong with our relationship to the environment. I thought if someone could just locate an ivory-bill, could prove that this remarkable species still exists, it would be the most hopeful event imaginable. We would have one final chance to save this bird and the bottomland swamp forests it needs to survive.”  From Surfbirds.com – interview with Tim Gallagher, author of The Grail Bird.

While working, I  was rewarded by first hearing and then seeing this magnificent Powerful Woodpecker!

“Earth’s population of wild vertebrates — all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish — declined 58 percent from 1970 to 2012. (That’s up from 52 percent in the 2014 report, which spanned 1970 to 2010.) In other words, the total number of wild animals with backbones has fallen by more than half within one human lifetime.”   Russell McClendon – Mother Nature Network (Oct 27/2016)

Mindo Ecuador –   Something happened last month that had a profound effect on me.  I’ve been trying to figure out how to approach it, how to share it with you – with those who might be interested – but even more for those who are not.

A Canary Shouts, “The Sky is Falling!”

Tags

animal behavior before earthquakeks, deforestation, Howler Monkeys, human-induced climate change, methane blow holes, siberia fires

My “Walden” of the Tropics – photo copyright/Lisa Brunetti

Before moving to Ecuador, I lived along a quiet stream in Costa Rica’s dry rain forest. Jaguars sometimes left their footprints in muddy areas to remind me not to venture out too far at night, and other exotic nocturnal animals allowed fleeting glimpses from time to time.  (Red-eyed Pacas and golden-eyed kinkajous)   Regal morpho butterflies surfed the invisible air currents above the cool waters of the stream while howler monkeys foraged and entertained me from the dense canopy overhead.

After a week of studying petroglyphs, I painted this ‘headphone holder’ coconut head and was surprised how it all but painted itself!

Quite at ease, this howler often loitered where I worked.

Almost every day the howler monkeys meandered through the tree tops along a specific-yet-relaxed route which included a stop-and-gawk session at the studio.  Like watchdogs, they often slept in the treetops above the roof.   Some mornings they slipped away silently, and other mornings they roared and howled until I finally opened the door, stepped outside and returned their greeting: “Buenos dias!  Good morning!  Ummmph-ummmph-ummmph-ummmph…”  (Roaring upsets them;  quiet ‘ummmphs’ calm them.)

If one remembers to look up, many times the howlers are quietly observing.

They became quite territorial in my behalf and seemed to watch over me.    The ‘little ones’ taught me a few subtle nuances of their language, and I could often call them a bit too close for my comfort!

“Will You Teach Me To Speak English?” Cultural Exchange – Costa Rica and then a surprise visit to another blog!

The adult warned, “Don’t listen to that gringa loca!”

How well I remember a quiet morning in Costa Rica when “my” troop of monkeys raced by without stopping.  “Hmmm,” I thought, “That was strange.  I wonder where they’re going.”   About half an hour later, they raced back in the other direction.  “Yes; that was very strange.”