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This was a project we felt was ideally suited for a small conservation
group in Britain to support. It was not so small a project as
to be ecologically insignificant, but nor was it too large for
those contributing to it to feel that they had achieved something.The
people of Leeds and Yorkshire, through Equafor, were able to donate
almost a fifth of the purchase cost of the core 800 hectares of
the Bilsa forest remnant and, to date, has provided £17,000. As
extending the core of this new reserve is of the highest priority,
our next donation will be intended to purchase more of this forest,
with the ultimate aim of conserving as much as possible of what
remains.Equafor has the great advantage of being based in Leeds.
One of the features of our city is Tropical World at Roundhay
Park, which is both a prime tourist attraction and a very effective
educational facility. As a part of Leeds Botanical Gardens, it
offers a taste of the rainforest, with the Marjorie Ziff house
being devoted to the flora of the Amazon. Equafor hopes to continue
to forge links between Jatun Sacha and Tropical World by providing
information on developments in Ecuador and by giving the people
of Yorkshire the opportunity tocontribute directly to the conservation
of a valuable rainforest.The Yorkshire Rainforest Project has
been and continues to be a success, but it is time for the idea
to spread. Already the people of Leicester, through Environ, and
members of Imperial College London, Project Sozaranga, have joined Equafor in adopting a project. If you wish to do
the same, our resources are yours for the asking.
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One moment we were immersed in the sights, sounds, and smells
of the rainforest, the next we were confronted by a scene of complete
devastation.Those few steps we had taken while engrossed in nature
might have transported us to a completely different world. They
had not, of course; scenes of such destruction are all too common
throughout the Amazon basin, but the contrast, at least, served
to bring home to us what we, like millions of others, had heard
about but had not fully comprehended. We were seeing the death
of the jungle.One tree had recently fallen. It was not exceptionally
large nor unusual, but in its branches we recorded 8 species of
orchid (5 of them in flower or bud), 6 bromeliads (air plants),
4 members of the heather family (ericaceae), 4 species of peperomia,
and many ferns, arum lilies, and other unidentified species of
epiphyte - all doomed.
After our experiences in Ecuador, we decided that there was no
point in sitting around bemoaning the situation. We had to do
something, however little, to help conserve the rainforest. After
looking for a specific cause to support, we came to the conclusion
that the projects of the large ecological organizations tended
to be too large. They lacked the sense of personal involvement
that we, as teachers, felt an important factor, so we decided
to set up a trust with the purpose of assisting local groups in
Britain help small conservation organisations in the tropics fund
their projects. Thus Equafor (Friends of the Equatorial Rainforest)
was born.It is Equafor's aim to assist rainforest conservation
schemes in general, but we have initially targeted a conservation
group which we met while in Ecuador. Fundacion Jatun Sacha is
a non-profit making organization of international scientific repute
which runs a biological station and reserve on the Rio Napo in
Amazonas. When we met them, they were trying to raise funds to
purchase part of one of the last remaining stretches of virgin
rainforest in the coastal highlands of Ecuador, which the owner
was offering for logging concessions.Two world famous American
ecologists, Al Gentry and Ted Parker, assessed the 13,000 hectare
Bilsa forest as part of Conservation International's Rapid Assessment
Programme shortly before they were killed in an air crash. They
were able to confirm the tremendous value of this particular forest
as a future resource for the world. Many endangered species find
their homes there and the species diversity is one of the highest
ever recorded.
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