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Rainforest Trust would like to celebrate this World Turtle Day by highlighting the recently expanded Geometric Tortoise Preserve and our long-time partner South African Tortoise Conservation Trust (SATCT). The hard work and dedication of SATCT staff, many of whom serve as Rainforest Trust Guardians, make the ongoing protection of tortoise habitat possible. The preserve is home to 25% of the remaining species population.

In 2015, we worked with SATCT to designate the 810-acre Geometric Tortoise Preserve to safeguard shrubland for the Critically Endangered Geometric Tortoise. Before the preserve was created, nearly 95% of the species’ habitat was lost to metropolitan development and agricultural encroachment from ranches and vineyards. This land transformation left the Geometric Tortoise population dwindling at fewer than 1,000 individuals. Both the species and land would have continued to degrade without protection. So Rainforest Trust supported the founding of the preserve, and this month, we helped SATCT expand the protected area by an additional 49 acres. 

The newly expanded preserve requires a large amount of maintenance from staff. Invasive tree species often make their way into the habitat, which is detrimental to native plants and wildlife that rely on them. Hermanus van der Ross and the other Rainforest Trust Guardians commit their time to clearing these trees and their seeds before the rainy season, which allows for the region’s natural vegetation to thrive. “We burned the alien trees after cleaning them from the habitat. That way, when the rainy season starts, the Fynbos starts to come back and grow,” said Ross.

A significant portion of the unique Fynbos ecosystem lies within the preserve. The Fynbos is small lush belt of shrubland that sits on the Western and Eastern capes of South Africa. Known for its exceptional biodiversity, it is home to many rare and threatened plant species and other wildlife. Over 9,000 plant species live in the Fynbos and more than two-thirds of them are found nowhere else on Earth. Less than half of the original Fynbos remains intact today, making the preserve and the people who work to protect it crucial to ecosystem survival.

Guardian Pieter Jack is passionate about conservation in the area and maintaining it for years to come. “It makes me proud to help in conservation and to protect the tortoises and field,” said Jack. “We had to see that this area must be managed and the flora and fauna must be protected for the next generation.”  

A collection of photos from the Geometric Tortoise Preserve. Photos by SATCT.

Header image: A Geometric Tortoise on the preserve.

On this Endangered Species Day, Rainforest Trust wanted to share a story from Oldrich Van Schalkwyk. Oldrich is a dedicated Conservation Fellow who recently helped organize a sting operation to rescue a pangolin being offered for sale.

Unfortunately, pangolins are the most trafficked mammal in the world and, as such, are on their way to extinction. Poachers value them in particular for their scales, believed to cure a variety of diseases in traditional Chinese medicine. Due to the rapid decline of Asian pangolin species, poachers have started targeting African pangolin species to sell in Asia.

Oldrich finds Louis under a cupboard. Photo by Endangered Wild Trust.

Earlier this month, Oldrich, a program manager for Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), caught word that a Temminck’s Ground Pangolin was being offered for sale in a village in Limpopo, South Africa. A brave informant, who then helped with the sting, provided this information. That informant began a fake negotiation with the sellers while Oldrich, EWT and local rangers planned the sting. They intended to rescue the pangolin and get him to safety.

The sellers were anxious to make the trade and the time window for rescue was closing. The sellers made it clear that if the sale didn’t go through within the hour the pangolin would go to someone else. So the team arrived at the scene as soon as possible. But the suspects fled before the team could arrest them.

“When you rescue animals from these situations, it is important to remember that you are dealing with organized crime. The animal lives are in danger, but human lives may also be in danger,” said Schalkwyck. “When I arrive at a scene like this, I am initially on “autopilot” and focused on following the proper legal procedures, because the animal is evidence.”

Eventually, woman and child in the house led the team to a small cluttered room.  Among the wreckage, Oldrich found the distressed pangolin hiding under a cupboard.

“The room was filled with chainsaw blades, it was awful. Once the scene was secure, there was a sense of urgency to get him to safety,” said Schalkwyk. “Though he seemed to be in relatively good condition, we wanted to get him a medical examination, because the wounds are not always visible.”

Upon rescue, Louis (the pangolin) was under immense stress and dehydrated. The team rushed him to Medike Nature Reserve, a Rainforest Trust-funded property, where he could eat, drink and rest. The following morning, the African Pangolin Working Group picked up him to begin full rehabilitation. They named “Louis” after the South African town he is from, Louis Trichardt. After rehabilitation, they will release him back onto the reserve. Rangers can then continue to monitor his health.

“Now we want to release him onto the Rainforest Trust property because it is the right habitat and has an active patrol,” said Schalkwyk. “Our researchers will continue to watch him before his hard release into the wild.”

For over 30 years, Rainforest Trust has worked to safeguard habitat for endangered species like the pangolin. Our Fellows, like Oldrich, will continue to dedicate their work in the field to ensuring the long-term survival of these species.

The Vulnerable Temminck’s Ground Pangolin. Photo by Daivd Brossard.

Thanks to an obscure evolutionary phenomenon, a small flightless, chicken-sized bird was able to bring itself back from extinction.

A new study from the University of Portsmouth and Natural History Museum in London revealed that the White-throated Rail — also known as the Aldabra Rail — has gone extinct and returned back from the dead over the course of tens of thousands of years.

The species’s ancestors were native to Madagascar, but, due to population growth, large flocks would often emigrate from the island. The flocks who flew to the north and south drowned in the ocean. Predators ate the groups who travelled west and landed in Africa. But those who ventured east were the luckiest, colonizing a few isolated ocean islands, including Aldabra. Aldabra, a ring-shaped atoll in the Indian Ocean, became their home. Since there were no real predators to fly away from on the atoll, the rail’s continued evolution left them flightless. Unfortunately, this meant they were unable to escape when sea level rose and inundated Aldabra. The atoll flooded and disappeared, wiping out all resident flora and fauna on the island, including the White-throated Rail.

White- throated Rail. Photo by Charles Davies.

But sea levels fell during an ice age several thousand years later. And somehow, the rail’s ancestors from Madagascar appeared again and recolonized the atoll. “Only on Aldabra, which has the oldest paleontological record of any oceanic island within the Indian Ocean region, is fossil evidence available that demonstrates the effects of changing sea levels on extinction and recolonization events,” said study co-author David Martill, of the University of Portsmouth.

Researchers studied two sets of fossils from the species: two pre-flood wing bones dating back 136,000 years compared to a post-flood leg bone around 100,000 years old. They also examined specimens of modern rails, of both the birds that could fly and those that could not. They found that the pre-flood bones were incredibly similar to the bones of the flightless rails that currently exist in that they showed an advanced state of flightlessness. The ankles in the leg bone from the post-flood fossil showed distinct evidence that it was evolving toward flightlessness. Meaning, the original species from Madagascar evolved into the same species of flightless rail on Aldabra after the extinction event, within a span of only a few thousand years. The White-throated Rail is still alive and flourishing on the atoll today.

“These unique fossils provide irrefutable evidence that a member of the rail family colonized the atoll, most likely from Madagascar, and became flightless independently on each occasion,” said the lead researcher for the study, Dr. Julian Hume, avian paleontologist and Research Associate at the Natural History Museum. “Fossil evidence presented here is unique for rails, and epitomizes the ability of these birds to successfully colonize isolated islands and evolve flightlessness on multiple occasions.”

This process of extinction and recolonization follows an extremely rare phenomenon called “iterative evolution.” Iterative evolution is the repeated evolution of a species from the same ancestor at different times in history. This is the first time iterative evolution has occurred in rails and one of the only known and the most significant instance of iterative evolution in any bird population.

Header image: The Aldabra atoll. Photo by UNESCO.

Rainforest Trust projects thrive thanks to the important conservation work of people on the ground. Our Voices from the Rainforest series brings you news from our projects in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Pacific — from the perspectives of those working in and for the rainforests.

Educating Communities in Conservation

Esther Kagoya is a Ugandan conservationist with over five years of experience in natural resources and freshwater fisheries research. She holds a Masters in Fisheries Science from Pukyong National University in South Korea. Currently, Esther is working as a research scientist for Uganda’s National Fisheries Resource Research Institute (NaFIRRI) in fish stock assessment, capture fisheries management and biodiversity conservation.

She worked as a field officer during the Safeguarding a Global Freshwater Fish Hotspot project. A collaboration between Rainforest Trust, NaFIRRI and local stakeholders that safeguarded 10,448 acres on Lake Nyaguo with two fishing exclusion zones and a wetland buffer around the whole lake.

Esther (Bottom Right) with other Rainforest Trust Conservation Fellows and community members.

Why did you become a conservationist?

A combination of my education and field experience have inspired me to become a conservationist. I chose to earn my bachelor’s degree in Natural Resource Economics because of my passion for natural resource related issues. I am primarily interested in sustainable management and conservation. I conducted research for my final BSc project on the effects of fisheries policies on fish production and conservation.

In the final months of school, I worked as an intern with NaFIRRI. During this time I was able to further my knowledge of fisheries conservation and obtain the necessary hands-on skills for field work. Eventually, I became a research assistant for NaFIRRI where I work on biodiversity conservation programs.

“The program provides easy access to conservation education and funding opportunities. Plus, reading about the successful protection projects conducted by other Fellows on the Rainforest Trust website inspire me and make me proud to be a part of the Conservation Fellows.”

Tell us about a time that you felt you had made a difference as a conservationist?

Being a young conservationist, I am always involved and interested in managing natural resources for the betterment of the future. During my work on the Lake Nyaguo project, I truly felt that I made a difference in the community. Before Rainforest Trust’s involvement in the project, the site was characterized by cultivated and cleared catchment and vegetation, use of illegal fishing gears and methods, low catch rates and declining fish stocks. I was able to get involved in several parts of the project. I worked with the research and project teams to identify several drivers of resource and species degradation. I also had the opportunity to communicate directly with resource stakeholders through community consultative meetings.

After the project’s inception, the stakeholders and communities are now more aware of the benefits of conservation through change in resource use behavior.  This gave them strength to sensitize other community members who were still using illegal fishing gears. The majority surrendered their destructive fishing gears and have transformed their use of destructive resource into practicing healthier ones. In addition, the project in collaboration with the local government enforced the wetland rules and regulations

Tell us about a conservation challenge in your job.

The main challenge I am currently facing is the lack of political interest in conservation. While riparian communities are willing to abide by the best practices of fishing using the stipulated laws, regulations and policies, politicians are communicating contrary messaging by encouraging people to utilize natural resources at their will. The convoluted messaging has made it difficult for resource use communities, specifically fishermen, who try to abide by the positive conservation practices. They are often misled by their politicians to use the equipment and methods that have a harmful effect.

Poverty among resource users is another challenge. Communities always look for short term gains without being mindful of the long term issues. This is mainly attributed to the high poverty levels in these communities and luck of alternative sources of livelihoods.

What is the hardest part of your job?

Conservation is a process that involves change in the mindset of resource users and other key stakeholders of the resource in question. However, this can be arduous because people are more interested in short-term resources and project gains like increasing resource productivity rather than the long-term gains of conservation.   

Engaging communities in behavior change communication for long-term sustainability is quite challenging given that their mindset is fixed on short term gains. However, I believe that this is a gradual process that requires patience and in-depth understanding of the stakeholders and their interests. It is only a matter of time.

Header image: The Lake Nyaguo project site. Photo by Isabirye Aggrey.

Conservation and animal rights advocates have always anthropomorphized nonhuman animals to inspire empathy. And for good reason: it’s hard to look into the eyes of a sad pup while Sarah McLachlan sings and not feel a kinship with the creature.

But those clips always seemed shallow, at least for conservation science. As conservationists, we preach the gospel of admiring wildlife for their own sake — not through an anthropocentric lens. That’s why some of us like March of the Penguins more than Happy Feet. For that matter, that’s why some of us like Frozen Planet more than March of the Penguins.

Anthropomorphism is — sometimes — gimmicky. But it works so well to inspire the public. Listen, I’d care about the plight of the Axolotl no matter what it looked like. But looking like a smiling salamander with face wings helps.

An Axolotl, or, a smiling face-winged salamander. Photo via Pixabay.

There has to be a way to inspire commonality with wildlife without resorting to imposing a human perspective on their life history. We need to immerse ourselves in a species’ reality without the pretense of our physiology. I mean this virtually. We need to immerse ourselves in their reality, virtually.

You know… like a virtual reality.

Students at Dartmouth University came up with this exact thing. A team of software designers and evolutionary biologists developed a virtual reality program mimicking the point of view of a tarsier.

Tarsiers are small, nocturnal primates native to Southeast Asia. As an adaptation for moving through the dense rainforest at night, they have massive eyes to see in the dark. And I mean massive eyes.

Oh, hello. A Philippine Tarsier, native to the Philippines. Photo by Klaus Stiefel.

All the better to see you with, indeed.

The paper summarizing this program, published in Evolution: Education and Outreach, mentions that if humans had the same eye-to-brain size ratio, our eyes would be the size of grapefruits.

Tarsiers are also unique because they don’t have the standard ocular physiology of nocturnal mammals. Most nocturnal mammals have a light-reflecting tissue layer which creates a better sense of vision in low-light. But tarsiers don’t have that layer, hence the far-larger-than-average peepers that let in more light.

The program allows users to move through different landscapes such as “Matrix,” “Labyrinth” and “Bornean Rainforest” with a tarsier’s unique, nighttime-ready eyesight. The program also features the ability to switch between human and tarsier eyesight in each virtual environment. The paper’s authors describe the nighttime rainforest environment as “a dark, maze-like space that is practically opaque under human visual conditions.” But, they add that the rainforest is “navigable as a tarsier, demonstrating the advantages of tarsier visual sensitivity.

Some of that dense Bornean rainforest the tarsiers must navigate at night. Photo by Rainforest Trust.

The developers set out to create the virtual reality program as a tool for students to engage with biology and the physics of eyesight. But for conservationists, one potential benefit of this software is the ability to imagine life as a creature with a different physiology. One barrier to empathizing with wildlife without anthropomorphizing them is the barrier between our respective “umwelt.”

The concept of umwelt is a phrase of semioticians, people who study signs and the production of meaning. (More than a little theoretical, I know. But think of it like studying how we comprehend that things mean what they mean. Sort of.) Umwelt is the idea that the way any organism moves through the world depends on its anatomy. Different anatomies = different ways of seeing and interacting with the world.

But if we can break down that barrier and live as another species — even in such an insignificant way — we can empathize without the part of the veil of humanity.

If we’re using virtual reality to engage folks with wildlife and biology, the tarsier will likely be the first of many animals we’ll transmogrify into with the power of technology.

Put on these shoes, and you’ll be able to communicate through the ground like elephants.

Put on these headphones and learn how warblers converse.

Put on this full-body motion capture suit and live as part of Happy Feet 18: Climate Ch-ch-ch-changes!

Well, if it can help us connect with wildlife without anthropomorphizing and learn a bit along the way, it’s a great idea.