[The Brain Scoop theme song]
Corine: So, Emily, this is one of the trees
that was cut down here.
This is about 2 meters in diameter.
It's just a huge tree that, who knows,
may be 2000 years old.
Emily: Wow.
Corine: Yeah.
And cut down for timber.
And this is one of the
sort of higher end timber species
here in Peru.
Some of them they actually
take in barges and then they go
Pacific Ocean.
The others, they go Atlantic Ocean.
Emily: So, this tree is going to make
quite the journey over the next
couple of years.
Corine: Totally.
And the papers that will accompany it
will never say that it came from right here.
Emily: Really.
Corine: Yeah. No way.
Emily: And this was cut down by
local indigenous peoples
not the timber industry.
Or were they working
for the timber industry?
Corine: Yeah, so, all of it is enabled
by saw mills.
My name is Corine Vriesendorp.
For the last decade I've had the total privilege
of going into some of the most remote
parts of the Andes and the Amazon
with an incredible group of scientists
conducting these rapid inventories.
Emily: So, Corine, this is
what number of inventory?
Corine: Twenty-seven.
Emily: Twenty-seven.
Twenty-seven inventories
and you've been on how many?
Corine: Seventeen.
Emily: Seventeen.
Corine: And the finds have been incredible.
So, just last night
we all sat down as a team
and reviewed the camera trap footage.
We set out these camera traps
to capture pictures of mammals.
And what we found totally shocked us.
There is a dog that lives in the Amazon.
There are actually two dogs
and they're both really rare.
But the rarest one of all
was found on this camera trap.
It's carrying this huge fruit.
It's an animal we know almost nothing about
and it occurs here in this forest.
We're seeing a bird that was discovered
in the 1830s, and has been
rarely seen since then
and it's calling to us every day at dusk.
If you think about it, we're standing
right here in a clearing that probably
has 150 different species of plants right here.
The sorts of birds that live here,
insects, frogs, snakes, electric eels,
all of those things, nobody is going to be
the expert on all of those things.
And so you have to piece it together
with help from others.
There's this team of people
and everybody has their own unique talents,
and all of it together is doing something
much bigger than each one of us.
Emily: And I've really seen
that collaborative effort too.
You know, you see a certain kind of flowering
or fruiting tree here
and you know because that tree is here
that monkey is going to be there.
So you can go to the mammalogist and be like,
hey, have you seen this kind of monkey?
And he's like, yeah, I have.
And because of that, the bird guys
know that that bird is here, because it
pollinates that tree.
So it really does bring all those elements together.
When people say that everything is connected,
like, it tangibly is so.
And so, what is the future of this program?
How do you see these rapid inventories
having an impact going forward?
Corine: So, all of these finds
are important, but if we think about
sort of the higher level piece to this
this place would connect three other
protected areas in Peru.
Part of what we'll be focusing on now
is these corridors, is creating--
we've had success in providing
scientific support for creating certain
parks and reserves
and now I feel like there are ways
to link those together.
So I still have this dream that one day
I'm going to walk from the Pacific coast
in South America all the way
to the Atlantic just through protected areas.
The mega-transect of South America.
And I feel like, because of what Brazilian,
Bolivian, Ecuadorian, Peruvian, Colombian
governments have done,
there's a chance to do that.
Emily: What is going to impede
your dream of walking from one coast to the other
through untainted wilderness?
Corine: I think the threat is this incredible need
for natural resources.
Some of it is going to be about balance.
Can we manage this tension between
innovation and sort of technological advance
and the need for fossil fuels and resources
and a real need to conserve these places.
And I feel like there's going to be--
that that's the fight.
Emily: That's the push and pull.
Corine: Yeah. And this program is going to
continue fighting that good fight.
[automatic camera timer beeps]
[shutter click]
Gracias.
No le vista, senora.
[group chatter and laughter]
[The Brain Scoop theme song]