Shaking off a night chill that creeps into your bones here in the forest, I dashed off to the river's edge with a mic' in hand to record a distant troupe of howler monkeys... I'm determined to share their powerful calls with a wider audience, yet almost simultaniously as the mic' went on, a last authoritative grunt signalled their silence.... Oh well next time...

The last morning at Roberto's camp: we'll miss the tranquility, the cool comfort of hammocks hung under high palm-thatched roofs, the dark glassy waters of the Maratakka River and the other-worldly savannah that stretches off South to its source. Its hard to contemplate the threats to a place so vast and nature-rich.

An hour or so into our journey back to Waningen, the most tangible threat to this environment came into view.... The loading site of a logging concession. The parched ground stripped of life by heavy machinery, pools of oil and discarded broken engines, batteries, tyres and all manner of unsightly rubbish that seem to have no place here, make it easy to be sensationalist.... To us it's blatant destruction, yet to the hard-working community of loggers living there, it's a livelihood. Suddenly Michael and his single-handed parrot catching seems a negligable threat. Yet all of these dangers are having a slow and uncontrolled impact that really could destroy this wonderful place. We've been told that concessions have been sold all the way up the Maratakka and that bird-catching is a licenced and seasonal practice. But unless the warning signs laid out to us by the WWF and locals like Roberto, are heeded and these practices are properly controlled, the future for this area looks grim.

There will be no more marvelling at the technicolour wonder of the Parrots, the awkward flight of the Toucan or the graceful white Heron... The mirror of vegetation on the river's edge will be broken by the ugly remains of industry. Obviously the demand for timber will never go away, but neither will the need for a balanced eco-system (the "Real World Wide Web" as the WWF calls it).

So as the afternoon light fades and the soporific buzz of the boats' engines calm us all, we're happy knowing that Michael has put aside the parrot-catching for now to join us tomorrow as we begin the trip to Kwamalasamutu.

The Bird in Question

Unsightly Rubbish

Part of the Process