EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

"Rodeo" Log Landing Site, 
Upper Amazon Basin, Bolivia

Explanation:   This is a rodeo ... no, not a rodeo with calf-roping and barrel racing ... but the Spanish rodeo meaning a log-landing site in a tropical forestry operation, in the upper Amazon Basin of northeastern Bolivia.

Seasonally wet tropical forests of the upper Amazon Basin are often harvested for lumber and a variety of forest products.  This forest concession has been selectively cut for large old trees and for palmitos.  The palms are taken for producing heart-of-palm, which is the sweet inner pith of the growing point of the palm.  

It takes many palms to produce a heart-of-palm industry because so little is harvested from each palm tree, and harvesting the heart kills the tree.  In this part of Bolivia, the remote village of Porvenir was developed for such an industry, but as the palms became more scarce and overharvested, the village declined and people moved away.  Eventually, the harvest rate of palms -- and large old-growth tropical trees -- in this area proved unsustainable.  
  

Cut log of tropical mahogany, perhaps 4 feet diameter.