In the middle of this year, the ARBIO Peru team received a visit from the organization Giant Trees Foundation – GTF who from Italy came to Madre de Dios to climb the gigantic trees of Shihuahuaco. Their mission: to investigate, monitor, and get to know them from a different reality – 50 meters above the ground. Can you imagine? All the way from Italy, climbing the Amazon forest.
Picture: SirConan22
The start – learning and training
Climbing a big tree is not an easy task. It takes practice, knowledge, and proper safety measurements. Between carabiners, ropes, harnesses and helmets, everything needs to be placed in a meticulous order, in a detailed way, and with specific precision. That is why learning from professionals is an important detail in this story.
When working with giant beings like the Shihuahuaco, the mystery of what life is like at its top arises, an experience that, from the ground, we are not able to imagine. That is why, to learn to climb and receive the best training, ARBIO Peru has signed an alliance with the Giant Trees Foundation, to teach us, step by step, how to climb the gigantic trees in our jungle.
Through this alliance we created a project that obtained financing from the Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia Giulia whose educational component seeks to train local youth and park rangers from the region. The best place for this learning is the ARBIO forest, where there are already several hundred large trees identified, censused, monitored and, above all, well protected. The practice began by executing the first basic climbing steps on an Ojé tree and a beautiful mango tree very close to the base camp.
In addition to the GTF and ARBIO team, 04 young people from the Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development Peru (FCDS Peru) participated. Together we share a transformative experience, rising to the treetops and entering a world full of life that few have the opportunity to know. This learning not only gave us new skills, but also allowed us to connect in a different way with the forest.
What is the ultimate goal?
In the treetops, Amazonian biodiversity is completely different from what we know at ground level. Birds, insects, and flora at 50 meters above the ground change, and with it, their behavior, importance, and role in the ecosystem.
Climbing trees not only serves as a mechanism to extract fruits or prune branches, in addition to good exercise, but as a means of research, to be able to observe the forest from another perspective.
Of course, the first part of this project was learning how to climb through training with the GTF team. However, what follows is still exciting. From insect evaluations to the placement of camera traps at the top of the canopies to spot birds. The range of possibilities is infinite now that the sky is the limit, or well, the highest branches of the canopy.
From Italy, climbing the Amazon forest
Now, who are Giant Trees Foundation? At the beginning of 2022, looking to climb the tallest trees in the Amazon, this organization came across the work of ARBIO and they carried out an expedition to the Madre de Dios jungle.
There they met the Tayta, one of the emblematic ancient trees in this forest. After amazement and contemplation, Tatiana (ARBIO) and Andrea (GTF) set out to climb it and measure its height which turned out to be 54 meters!
Two years later, in 2024, the Italian GTF team returns to the Peruvian Amazon to train rangers and local youth in tree climbing. And the results obtained have been fruitful: both teams motivated to reach higher, united with the purpose of protecting these ancient beings threatened by logging. There are now 14 people trained in climbing large Amazonian trees to expand this respect from the top of the ARBIO Peru forest.