On Top of the World: why we need to

protect life up above

January 26, 2013

Steven Schmidt

On Top of the World - With Don Perry, the 'Jacques Cousteau of the Rainforest Canopy'

I want to say a few words about Don Perry, Dr. Perry, who swung in and posted a couple

comments yesterday on my Facebook page about climate change, global warming and its coming

impact (e.g., a big, very BIG sea level rise). Be aware, Don is not your standard scientist who has

dwelt in academia, collecting accolades and plaudits for his lifetime of work and explorations of

the bio-universe. Don has gone on from UCLA to literally change the way we see our world.

As I used to say about Don, when we were working together back when I lived in LA and he was

starting his career that would revolutionize the science of tropical forest study, Don is unique in

his field, he's a pioneer (and "bioneer"), he's an explorer, an inventor. Don invented new

techniques and methods for ascending and studying the 'real jungle', up above far from LA's

glam, and proceeded to enable and show us what the resplendent, amazing rainforest, the richest

biosphere on earth, the canopy, was like and it was wonderful... first-ever pictures and reports

and science from on high. I was privileged to help as his representative and we saw Don's visions

reach audiences around the world as he opened eyes to the eco-wonders of the environment we

live in and the world we came from long ago, that is, if you believe in evolution... Don was a

"Jacques Cousteau of the Rainforest Canopy." I meant the words when I said them and still do.

Don's pioneering work has been featured in Scientific American, National Geographic,

Smithsonian, New York Sunday Times magazine, Life, Newsweek, Paris Match, Quick of

Germany, Popular Science, etc, etc, etc.

I have to say that Don's career is one-of-a-kind, an unparalleled feat of brave, courageous ascents

and creative imagination and engineering that followed, from Topanga canyon w/ Southern Cal

beginnings, to cross-bows firing lines and stringing canopy webs and going up himself, then a

first-gen automated canopy exploration web system, to the first aerial, eco-trams for non-

scientists and tourists and eco-preneurs, and zip line projects for all of us world over, Don has

been reaching up for decades, surviving close calls and still going strong.

Don has changed the way we see "the jungle". I can't remember how many times I've explained

over the years that the jungle isn't the way most everyone thinks about it -- it's not about

Victorian-like stories, there's no machete at the ready, natives chopping away and a gun slung on

a strap on your shoulder like Stanley and Livingston or Tarzan or Sheena, Queen of the Jungle,

Hollywood's film versions of the jungle. Rather, the real jungle's up there, the richest biosphere,

60, 80, 100, 120 feet up and higher (think Amazon and meters if you want.) It's really up above,

what I used to call "the cradle of new life forms", where evolution is still happening and

happening fast... we're talking about life forms few have seen and studied, a gazillion types and

insects and small creatures and green species, varieties, animals whose lives are lived out quickly

and generation to generation in a geo-minute or -second, survival or not and adaptation

happening in evolutionary timelines.

We now are seeing and witnessing and in the past few decades realizing the impacts and dangers

to the rain forests, even before we discover the genetic environments we're wiping out as we

clear cut and burn and rip away, humans interjecting profound change by destroying the rain

forests worldwide. This story that science is now beginning to bring to us stands in contrast to

green biodiversity and saving life, a pro-life position, where science and voices like Don's and

those of us who've lived the life of being green are telling us - ACT, ACT NOW, for our own

global health and well-being, act to save, be "conservative", truly conservative, not "crazy

conservative", pay attention to the facts, conserve, conserve now, fast

Don was (and is) an original eco-explorer who realized the need to see what is at stake, he saw

and he created an EcoTram, as it's now called, one of the first eco-explorer ventures designed to

teach up close. He's devoted himself to the work, taking science to the next step, acting on his

discoveries. The eco-trams jump started eco-tourism up above in the canopies, as they carry eco-

tourists thru the tropical forests where they can come eye-to-eye with life's rich diversity. In

Costa Rica as one of his trams, a first, has been running near San Juan, for years w/ travelers and

adventurers from Europe, the US, Asia and around the world experiencing personally the real,

diverse variety of life in the canopy and, as Don and our hopes began to come to be, all of these

first-timers could become evangelists, returning home to tell their stories of what the real world

is like up there and why it's worth saving. There's no better way, as Mr. Wizard, Don Herbert

would tell me, to teach than up close, hands on. People could sense, feel, touch, smell the

richness up close and personal and truly appreciate what it is, what we are trying to save when

we talk about saving the tropical forests, the lungs of the earth and much more. It's about Gaia,

it's about breathing and much more

Thank you Don

Thank you for going up there in the old days and ever since

The trees are where we came from... spires, in'spiration' we a'spire' to a 'heaven' up above,

cathedrals spire above, our language imagining goodness as we look up... and as we've evolved

since our descent, let's rediscover what we left, rich, very rich and needed life

Thank you, you've battled and your new directions, your work on more e-trams, your questioning

of human evolution beginning w/ us as the "greatest climbers", your thoughts here on the future

of sea rise as you wrote about yesterday on my my FB wall as I mulled about Doonesbury's

myFacts take on global warming deniers, (especially pertinent to us folks who live barely above

sea level), I want you to know you're truly appreciated

___

Rain Forest Canopy -- and Climate Change/Global Warming -

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3408000258.html

Significance of the Rain Forest Canopy in Ecological Processes

Canopies of all types, including boreal and tropical forests, play a crucial role in the maintenance

of ecological processes, although thus far, the attention of researchers has tended to concentrate

on those in the tropics, rather than those in temperate climates.

The forest canopy is the principal site for the interchange of heat, oxygen, water vapor, and

carbon dioxide. It has been estimated that most photosynthetic activities in the biosphere occur in

the canopy. Forest canopies account for almost half of the carbon stored in terrestrial vegetation

and fix more carbon per year than any other habitat. Ecophysio-logical studies are therefore

crucial to predict the impact of increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide in global

warming. Thus, forest canopies both control regional climate and play an important role in

regulating global climate.

'Carbon fixing', photosynthesis, what the rainforests do and why they need to be protected -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fixing

___

"It is possible that we could still save tropical forests and ourselves... each of us is responsible."

- Life Above the Jungle Floor, A Biologist Explores a Strange and Hidden Treetop World

Simon & Schuster, ©1986 - One can almost hear an uncomfortable rustling in academic halls as

new discoveries bring fascinating pieces of the canopy puzzle into place. The emerging picture

clearly shows that the canopy has been a foremost habitat in the evolution of life.

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__________________________________________________________________

"It was a change in perspective, an awakening, deja vu.... I felt I belonged there"

The canopy world flourishes at the equivalent of the “15th floor” of the rain forest, 50 metres

up. It is difficult to study from ground level because of the dense vegetation that obscures the

world above. Three-quarters of rain forest trees have limbs that are too weak to climb. Many rise

25 metres without branching. (One-step) Snakes, scorpions, numerous ants and troublesome

insects are a further deterrent.... The rain forest canopy, Perry points out, contains "the most

complex communities of life on earth".

>Dr. Donald Perry, founder of The Rainforest Aerial Tram, pioneered the exploration of the

canopy beginning in 1974. His innovative methods of access include rope systems and an

automated cable way. Of his latest idea he states, "no system in the world can offer this intimate

proximity to such an extensive volume of rainforest. Knowledge that will help save forests will

finally be within reach." Dr. Perry began work on an 'ecoTram' after becoming convinced that

the only way to stop destruction of the rainforest was by showing not only Costa Ricans but

people throughout the world the wonder of this unexplored habitat and by creating an

alternative to unsustainable exploitation of the forest. Dr. Perry's canopy access methods are

now used worldwide by a network of arboreal biologists who are uncovering secrets of treetop

life.

Rainforest Alliance - Forests are home to some two-thirds of the world's plants and animals. As

they are cleared and degraded, the unique flora and fauna that depend on these ecosystems

become threatened with extinction.

>In 1978, studying the role of herbivorous bats in dispersing seeds of the monkey-pot tree in

Costa Rica, Perry hit on the solution: a special web of ropes and cables that permitted

unrestricted movement across a canopy. With John Williams, an engineer friend from California,

Perry developed a system for a platform, 400 metres of rope web, pulleys and descent ropes,

with which he could move from ground level to above the tree top and anywhere inside the

canopy world. "The combination of the web and the descent ropes gave unrestricted movement

through a volume of forest an acre in area and 30 metres in depth, opening great biological

wealth to observation," Perry recalls.

With Williams he designed the Automated Web for Canopy Exploration (AWCE), using a

stainless steel cable, a rigid chair and wireless controls. This took much of the fear out of canopy

research and enabled two researchers at a time to manoeuvre up to the canopy at 30 centimetres

a second. The AWCE design won him a Rolex Award, and Popular Science said it "promises to

open the jungle to research the same way scuba gear opened the oceans".

Popular Science's description (including a reference (above) we were offering to the work of

Cousteau, a comparison between the rich life in the oceans and rich life of rain forests and the

scientific breakthrough of Cousteau's invention of the scuba gear enabling close up studies and

Don's invention of climbing gear enabling science close up and personal) -

http://books.google.com/books?id=J3sUn8WV22MC&pg=PA87&lpg=PA87&dq=don+perry

>Don Perry, Ecotram's founder was instrumental in igniting Costa Rica’s ecotourism-based

economic transformation and a whole new field -- the scientific investigation of the most

complex communities of life on earth found living on high tropical tree limbs. This work was

responsible for the zip-line fad sweeping the globe as well as the use of cable-ways to view

nature. Now Ecotram LLC has added a new investigative and ecotouristic tool to its lineup of

cable-ways for exploring and studying nature. [LinkedIn]

_________

ps, for my [vidprotalk forum] friends, remind me to tell you the story of servo drive cams, auto

programmed to run w/o smelly, noisy people around (to keep human impacts down ala the

Heisenberg principle), the film n video shooting up there over the 'highways in the sky', huge and

multi dimensioned limbs where the animals run and what can happen when two beasties go out

for a night run and come racing up to an 'intersection' where they meet a not so nice, or very

nice, surprise coming the other way, the treetop life …

Comment Share

Steven Schmidt "It is possible that we could still save tropical forests and ourselves...

each of us is responsible."

Steven Schmidt ... what we are trying to save when we talk about saving the tropical

forests, the lungs of the earth and much more. It's about Gaia, it's about breathing and

much more

Steven Schmidt speaking of Gaia and its whole earth ideas, as a flash back, an old buddy,

Rick Berman, produced the kid's version of Blue Marble, back when we both lived in NY

and then he went on to producing the Star Treks in LA, Gene Rodenberry's successor

The Sacred Balance (TV) Excerpt - James Lovelock Explains Gaia Hypothesis

www.youtube.com

http://goo.gl/L7rrr David Suzuki talks...

Steven Schmidt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Marble

The Blue Marble - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Blue Marble is a famous photograph of the Earth, taken on December 7, 1972

January 26 at 11:35pm

Donald Perry Thanks for the quotes. Reading them I realized who shaped my awareness.