National Geographic: Heroes of the High Frontier Page #4

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into a garden

overflowing with the ants favorite

food plants,

some of which are never found

anywhere else.

A canopy mouse quenches its thirst

in a mouse size bromeliad.

Mice eat epiphyte seeds and are, in

turn, eaten themselves... by Boas.

It's flicking tongue tastes

the victim's presence

as it follows it out onto the

thinnest vine.

Sometimes, there's no where to go,

but down.

It spreads its limbs like a parachute.

The mouse crashes through foliage

hurtling six stories down.

It weighs so little - air resistance

slowed its fall enough

so that it landed safely,

one of the benefits of being a small

creature in the canopy.

Small animals thrive in rainforest

canopies the world over.

In the Great Amazon Basin,

they could travel from treetop to

treetop for thousands of miles.

The woolly opossum was thought

to be one of the rarest of the

Amazon's creatures.

Its prehensile tail is naked at the tip

to give it a strong grip.

They are built like little wrestlers.

Babies cling tightly to their mothers,

who grasp the thinnest of lianas

with powerful feet.

Those without a family in tow have

more freedom of movement.

They are all searching for sweets.

They drink nectar and eat fruit.

The mother must seek her dinner

elsewhere.

Using aerial roots as a ladder

she follows another sweet scent.

So sweet is this perfume it distracts

the opossum from its meal.

The aroma of ripe banana proves

irresistible.

Mother and offspring are lucky to

have missed this treat.

The wooly opossum finds the

morning light unnerving.

By now, it should be hidden in the

darkness of its lair.

But it has no need to fear,

the trap was set by biologist

Jay Malcolm

who is exploring the night-world of

the canopy

with some startling results.

"These wooly opossums are the

single most abundant mammal

in this forest,

more abundant than any other kind

of rodent,

more abundant than any kind

of monkey,

or any other kind of mammal

and that was a total surprise.

People knew that there were things

up there,

we just didn't know how many

or where,

so, when we started doing this,

everything we found out was

brand new.

Gaining access to the canopy and

putting traps up in the canopy

has really allowed us to enter

a new world,

a new realm of, of research.

And, we, uh, know almost nothing,

there's new species of small

mammals,

so, there promises to be a lot more

surprises."

"Off you go."

From museum rarity to common

critter -

they just had to look for it

in the right place.

To service as many traps each day

Jay learned an ancient technique

of tree climbing.

"This is called the picoino or

foot-belt,

it's the same method that the

Amerindians have always used

to climb up palm trees.

The way it works is what you're

really doing,

you're sort of pushing out against

your heels,

so you're really sort of turning your

feet into a pair of pliers."

To climb seven stories in a manner

of seconds,

a feat that requires incredible

strength and stamina.

Should he lose his grip,

even for an instant,

he would crash to the ground below.

Having attached a small pulley,

he raises a simple and ingenius

frame for his trap.

Once it is in place,

he slides down like a fireman on

a very long and rough pole.

Then he simply raises his trap

into position

where it will await an

overnight guest.

Jay finds that he captures opossums

only within the undisturbed canopy.

Canopy animals are stopped short

where the fabric of the forest is

slashed by a clear-cut.

Thirteen years after the chain

saws stopped,

this place is still a no-man's land,

a desert.

"An area that's been cut over

and used,

and you know what it's like walking

down there,

it's hot, full of all sorts of burrs

and messy stuff,

from a life standpoint it has been,

basically, trashed

- there's not much left there,

it's just a, a tragedy."

Despite efforts to save it,

the rainforest is being consumed

at an unprecedented rate,

lending an air of urgency to

canopy exploration.

But in the face of such a huge

problem,

you have to dream larger still.

A lighter than air arc ascends

with the dawn.

Suspended beneath is the

canopy luge,

a sled bearing excited researchers

on the trip of their lives.

Among them, is one of the founders

of the field,

Meg Lowman, who has explored

canopies the world over,

but, today, she goes where no one

has gone before.

Their mission - to trawl the green

sea of the canopy

and to get some inkling of the

biological richness it contains.

right or left... exactament...

The blimp maneuvers the luge

carefully.

Sidling up to a tree crown a hundred

and fifty feet in the air.

As soon as they are close enough

to reach,

nets are wielded frantically.

...encore

They scoop up insects and collect

whole branches in an all out effort

to gather as many samples of

canopy life as quickly as they can.

It would have taken weeks of

difficult and dangerous

climbing to get the samples they

amass

in just one morning on the luge.

The luge is part of

Operation Canopy,

which invites the best researchers,

the world over, to join its venture.

They also use the canopy raft,

a web-like platform dropped

over the crowns of several trees.

Walking atop the swaying trees is

like walking on the face of the sea.

"I guess I feel really special

walking on the tops of trees

and I really tiptoe all the time

because I'm frightened of

disturbing these poor little buds

or snapping a branch,

but, in actual fact, with the raft

and its wonderful mesh floor,

our weight is dispersed really nicely"

Meg's work in the treetops has

shown that over millions of years

plants evolved poisons to defend

themselves from being eaten,

while insects evolved ways to

overcome these toxins.

Rain forest plants and insects are

waging a bio chemical war.

The arsenal of poisons and antidotes

created by canopy plants

and animals are a pharmaceutical

gold mine.

They are the stuff that medicines

are made out of.

Who knows what cures to what

dread diseases may be hidden

among the samples collected by

the crew of Operation Canopy?

Each evening the best canopy

scientists in the world...

...share a meal along with their

ideas by swapping techniques,

samples and data they are beginning

a new era in canopy research.

They have blazed a trail into the last

biological frontier

- opening this eighth continent to

exploration.

Upon their shoulders the next

generation can scale new heights.

Today, canopy tours offer a thrilling

new perspective on life.

But the greatest thrill is realizing

we are part of this beautiful world

floating above our own,

for good or ill.

The same pioneering spirit that

brought up into the canopy

has given us the power to destroy it.

The first canopy explorers have

given us a unique opportunity

to save this amazing world.

We have a choice.

It is up to us which path we take.

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