July 10: Angelica Almeyda and Eben Broadbent spent the first half of July in the field working on a project funded by the Stanford Woods Institute with Profs. Rodolfo Dirzo (Biology) and William Durham (Anthropology) on a project in the Manual Antonio region of Costa Rica assessing the impacts of tourism on social, economic and environmental sustainability in the region. This project has a particular focus on impacts of defaunation and forest cover change from 1980 through present. It integrates extensive questionnaires with hotels, local communities, remote sensing, and forest inventory transects.
In early June, Eben was invited to present at the " Seminario Latinoamericano en Politica y Manejo Forestal" in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. The presentation provided an introduction to remote sensing of forest cover and degradation and an overview of future advances to a audience of 30 forestry professionals from throughout Central and South America.
July 12: Greg Asner writes, "We're in Iquitos, Peru now, almost finished with a major Spectranomics field campaign. We have collected roughly 600 tree species, and are making our way back home.  This is the first of a 4-part campaign spread over three months. It involves Robin and me, plus more than 20 Carnegie-funded Peruvians.
July 20: Greg sends an update on the Carnegie Spectranomics Project. "Last Wednesday, we completed field campaign #12, this time to the northern Peruvian Amazon. We climbed and collected a whopping 606 rainforest canopy trees and lianas in 12 days, with processing and analysis of spectroscopic and chemical properties along the way.  A huge congratulations goes to spectranomics coordinators Raul Tupayachi and Robin Martin, our botanical team, and a dedicated group of volunteers. We’ll be continuing the spectranomics mega-transect in the region of highest tree diversity on our planet – the western Amazon.
Images of the activity can be viewed at: