The End of an Era

After over 6 years of intensive research and community development work in and around the Yachana Reserve, GVI Amazon is coming to a close. We have finished our final research project (look forward to our Road Effects paper, coming soon!) and are handing over the project to our partner, The Yachana Foundation. They will continue to maintain and monitor the reserve, using it as an hands-on science education center for students -- we're very excited to see what fabulous things this next generation of scientists find! For more detail on GVI Amazon's closure, and our accomplishments over the years, please read on...
GVI Amazon Closure Statement

Friday, April 8, 2011

“Is it a lizard?” “No I don’t think so, maybe it’s a frog..?” No! Actually it’s a Bolitoglossa peruviana!

Week one and the new volunteers are in full-on training mode. They’ve got presentations aplenty on butterflies, reptiles, amphibians, taxonomy, mammals and much more, not to mention their first forays into the forest both day and night. And of course, let’s not forget the all-important ID test where everyone learns to identify some of the most commonly found species on the reserve, and where some extra-studious volunteers may even correctly identify the mystery species cheekily added in as a last-minute surprise!

Training week is a big deal on base camp, as it is really important that volunteers receive this science training when they first arrive. Being able to identify these species means that volunteers will be able to understand more of what they see in the forest and be more helpful when out on a survey. Not to mention that it’s just generally pretty cool, and makes you sound quite clever, when you see a lungless Dwarf climbing salamander and know that it is neither a lizard nor a frog but rather the fabulous “glossy Peruvian sausage” known as Bolitoglossa peruviana!

Caroline Acton, GVI Amazon Field Staff, April-June 2011


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