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

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

GVI Amazon says ‘No’ to tuna

For the past few years here we have always supplemented, our otherwise totally vegetarian diet, with a weekly tuna meal. Having tuna once a week is a treat for volunteers (and staff!), and is convenient, however is not the most environmental friendly activity.

Tuna fishing is not a very sustainable industry due to its role in global fish stock depletion and the amount of fishery bycatch caught in long lines (which can include dolphins, sea turtles, other fish, and even seabirds as albatrosses).

After a little discussion, it is for these reasons that GVI Amazon has decided to boycott tuna, making a decisive action and choice from this expedition not to support this unsustainable industry.

But fear-not, meat-lovers. In the place of tuna we now buy locally produced, free-ranging “happy chicken” from our local communities every few weeks. What’s more is the chickens are bought alive, so all the volunteers can have the opportunity to get involved in learning how to properly (and fully) prepare a chicken ready to eat, which also teaches a valuable lesson on understanding our food comes from first hand. It also allows us another avenue to support our local communities. So far chicken has been a great success and some excellent meals produced.

Jasmine Rowe – GVI Amazon Base Manager


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