Chapter 9: Islands On Dry Land

July 14, 2019

 

          In Chapter 9, Kolbert starts with Reserve 1202, like other reserves in Brazil near the Venezuelan border, is controlled by Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project, or BDFFP; which Tom Lovejoy created with the Brazillian government to preserve specific rainforest areas from farmers and ranchers. Reserve 1202 has a 25 acre land of untouched rainforest, which Kolbert visits with an ornithologist, Mario Cohn-Haft, who points out that biodiversity, in general, has gradually decreased within the reserves. This could be explained through the actions of humans on the environment such as the act of deforestation. It is noted that this planet has 50 million square miles worth of land that does not have a significant amount of snow, and more than 25 million square miles have been developed through actions of deforestation. However, in page 187 Kolbert states "habitat lost to deforestation isn't really lost. Even forests that have been logged for timber or burned for pasture can and do regrow". Thus, this connects to the APES Theme: The Earth itself is one interconnected system; without human presence, forests will come back as will many species. This takes me to the connection from the previous chapters that like coral reefs, species in the rainforest rely on each other. For example, Kolbert and Cohn-Haft recognize that the army ants are a source of nutrition to 300 species, and with the ants gone in the night, the birds are confused. The explanation in page 192, "When you find one thing that depends on something else that, in turn, depends on something else, the whole series of interactions depends on constancy"; [E] everything in the Earth good or bad have a connection in some ways.