Island Press Field Notes

For over 30 years, I’ve worked in rainforest ecosystems. My senses are finely tuned to the sweet smell of cedar and pine, sap runs through my veins, and I have learned how to read the forest like the pages of a good mystery novel. But each year, I do an annual trek to the desert where rainforests give way to spiny, prickly things with names like pincushion and rainbow cactus, prickly pear cactus, and ocotillo. This year, I arrived in the Sonoran desert just outside Phoenix, Arizona during an early spring bloom where I was greeted by a kaleidoscope of colors and unfamiliar scents.

The results of last month's annual Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge Bird Survey indicate that birds may colonize reforested areas much faster than experts had predicted. This year's surveyors spotted all five of the common native forest birds and four endangered forest birds within sections of the refuge that two short decades ago had been treeless areas dominated by non-native plants and animals. "I never thought I'd live to see this," said Jack Jeffrey, who coordinated this bird survey and was the refuge biologist from 1990-2008.

Opposition to shrimp aquaculture in Ecuador has been growing as coastal mangrove dwellers find their voice and harden their resolve to fight for the preservation of the forests that sustain them. Some of the more outspoken opponents of shrimp farming have had their lives threatened. I met one such champion of the mangroves, who had been in hiding with his family for a month. Here is the blog post I wrote after talking to him. . . Read more »

No, it's not in Brazil or Borneo. It's actually in the good old USA, literally and figuratively clinging to a steep slope in a drainage called Mahanaloa Gulch on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai. We need to stop twiddling our thumbs and SAVE THIS FOREST NOW.