Treetop Family
A wildlife Journey in the Amazon rainforest by Leonide Principe
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Leonide Principe are living in the Amazon as a professional photographer since 1980, when he initiated a Sipa Press assignment, the Pink Dolphin Expedition. Since then, he sell Stock Photography to magazines, publishers, advertising... he published books as the Amazonian Emotions and Little Green Warrior, among others. He is publishing another book with the support of the Amazon Gouvernement, the Canopy Journey, a tree-climbing project, aimed to find orchids on the forest trees. “Moreover I am photographing as much as I can to enrich more and more the Archive, which is strictly oriented to the Amazon, illustrating the different aspects of this region. I avoid to publish and sale images about destruction, fire or deseases. There are too many about this! I prefere to look at the Nature integrity and share the positive side. I play my part, living with my family in a very low-impact way and showing his beauty and uniqueness.� 4
Treetop Family
A wildlife Journey in the Amazon rainforest by Leonide Principe
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Copyright 2010 by Leonide Principe. Photographs and design by Leonide Principe Leonide Principe photographs are part of the Amazon Stock Photography, a professional 20year photographic archive about the Amazon region. http://www.leonideprincipe.com/ Tropical Tree Climbing is the company that organize personalized tours in the Amazon. The Treetop Family is the owner of this company, including the three children, Kena, Kinan e Geo, the mother Vanessa and the father Leonide. http://www.tropicaltreeclimbing.com/ Contact: info@leonideprincipe.com First Edition: July 7, 2010 Manaus - Amazon - Brazil
The Blurb-provided layout designs and graphic elements are copyright Blurb Inc., 2010. This book was created using the Blurb creative publishing service. The book author retains sole copyright to his contributions to this book.
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Sobralia violacea The ephemeral flowers of the Sobralia violacea start and end their bloom on the same day. In the picture, the diaphanaous inside of the flower.
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Dedications To Kena, Kinan and Geo, who inspired this book. Dedicated to my wife, who cares about our unity.
Dedicated to the Amazon region, where we live, and where we learn every day. This book tells the story of our family: we live in the Amazon. But what’s more, we live in the Amazon and its uniqueness. These are just a few essential words, and many, many photographs to illustrate the atmosphere of our daily life. Our wish is to share sensations, emotions, and feelings.
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Table of Contents Sobralia violacea 5 Dedications 6 Ara macao 10 Pink dolphin 13 Amazon Stock Photography 15 Amazon Folklore 19 Landscapes and waterscapes 20 A whole coverage 22 Orchids, the canopy discovery 24 Enciclya vespa 29 Micro-orchids 30 Tree Climbing 32 More and more tree climbing 35 Treetop family lifestyle 36 Treetop like house 39 Tim Kovar 40 Knowing and admiring 46 Horned Screamer 49 Hoatzin 50 Watching in the night 53 Pachamama 54
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Flying 57 144, the family nest 59 In the house 60 Cashew festival 63 Amapa 64 An important talk 68 Aloft 71 Treetop Camping 72 Treetime 75 Redolent of orchid 77 Paphinia grandiflora 78 Ariau Amazon Towers 80 Pirana fishing 84 Major treeclimbers 86 Cattleya violacea 90 Cattleya eldorado 92 Dimerandra emarginata 94 Brassia lawrenceana 95 Acacallis cyanea 96 Bromeliads 98 Sobralia grandifolia 100 Catasetum longifolium 102 Brassavola martiana 102 My bird 105 Cattleya brymeriana 106 Encyclia fragrans 107 Birdwatching 108 An old friend 110 Next 117 11
Ara macao Macaws are eternally faithful: they only have a single companion during their entire life. The kissing macaws picture is my most famous photograph. It is published again in each of my books.
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Pink dolphin The story starts with the pink dolphin (Inia geoffrensis). In 1989 I arrived in the Amazon to work on a report about this tenderhearted mammal. I never imagined that this would be just the beginning of a long Amazonian journey.
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Amazon Stock Photography The pink dolphin was the catalyst for an ambitious, never ending project: Amazon Stock Photography, an archive to depict the region as a whole. The Amazon and its quirkiness, landscapes, fauna, flora, and indigenous people, was, and is, the main theme of the archive. Art, research, culture, and tourism are all aspects that as a photographer I approach with equal interest, including the folkloric and ecotouristic contexts. I am photographing as much as I can to continually enrich the Archive‌ a never ending project.
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Riverside dwellers Known in the region as “ribeirinhos�, these riverside dwellers are the people who, more than anyone else, experience the Amazon’s ecosystems on a daily basis. They are the natural guide to discover and feel where we are.
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The shaman invokes the spirits of the forest...
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Amazon Folklore In Parintins as well as in Manacapuru, Santarem, and other little towns, the exhuberant Amazonian culture explodes in colors and forms as the most authentic expression of the region. Thousands of people join efforts to build one of the most impressive spectacles in the world.
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Landscapes and waterscapes Words are not sufficient to express the variety of Amazonian waterscapes and landscapes. Immense distances, unexpected contrasts, delicate textures, and the restive wish to see more, much more. 22
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A whole coverage Diving in the dark waters, navigating rivers and lakes, hiking deep forests, following remarkable events, knowing people, stalking animals, flying... Looking for every aspect, but something was missing...
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Orchids, the canopy discovery The Treetop Journey project, sponsored by the Amazon Government, was the start of a new and exciting phase: climbing trees in the forest. The main purpose of the project was to find and photograph orchids in their habitat.
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The disclosure of a new world Yes! A new world disclosed to the eyes of the photographer, a new inexhaustible field of research. Living in the Amazon and, specially, experiencing daily life in the rainforest, along with climbing up to the canopy, became the quintessencial focus of my profession. 28
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Enciclya vespa What was it doing there, in front of me, that being from another world? When I touched it with my hands I could tell that it was not an ethereal vision… it had a material consistency. I could only say: “Looks like an angel ...”
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Micro-orchids Pleurothallis aff. peperomioides (top). Scaphyglottis stellata, Trigonidium acuminatum and Pleurotallis mentosa (below). On the opposite page, Trisetella triglochin. All can be considered micro-orchids. There are collectors who devote themselves exclusively to the cultivation of these types of orchids, with their numerous and very different species. Only a refined eye can perceive these flowers in their beauty.
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Tree Climbing In the earlier phase, I saw tree climbing as something complementary to my work as a photographer. In the most recent phase, I went through a radical change which has completely altered my view on the technique that must be applied to movement in the canopy. Tree climbing has evolved into an art independent and autonomous within my professional world.
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More and more tree climbing Not only the photographer and the treeclimber are now deeply connected. Our entire family embraces the activity of ascending the giants‌ children Kena, Kinan, and Geo, and my wife Vanessa are fully involved. The treetop family lifestyle awakens in us the powerful connection with nature.
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Treetop family lifestyle Treetop family is foremost a way of life. It means spending most of our time in Nature, and climbing trees takes a lot of time. The most challenging aspect of this choice is to harmonize it with our economic-based society. Photography and ecotourism have been the two basic activities that connect our dream with the real world. We wish to live in a natural environment, but also to share our feelings with others. Many people miss being connected to Nature.
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Treetop like house Children love to climb and to stay on trees. Children love trees. Like Gulliver playing with Lilliputians, the tree bears them on its big arms. allows them to sway, and it shows them the world from a privileged point of view.
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Tim Kovar Tree climber Tim Kovar deserves a special mention, as he is the family instructor. Coming from a land of giants, the Sequoia sempervivens kingdom, he is a master who climbs trees as an art. We are grateful to him because of his insistence and instruction on safety rules. 42
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Nature as school In a very very big classroom everything happens spontaneously, at any moment: zoology, botany, astronomy, physics... not just science and observation, but most of all connected sensations, emotions, and feelings.
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Knowing and admiring Knowledge is generated from a powerful stimulus: the spring of curiosity, the oldest germ of acquaintance.
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Horned Screamer Horned screamers (Anhima cornuta) pair for life, or for at least several years. Pairs stay together throughout the year, seeking isolation in marshy areas in late winter and early spring to trumpet in duets.
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Hoatzin Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoatzin) it is a pretty unique beast, a prehistoric looking bird with a punk haircut. It only eats leaves, and is the only bird to have a gut like a cow. 52
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Watching in the night We followed the owl during three days. Kinan and Geo help me out with an extra flash, and let me know when the bird is looking exactly straight at us, because we wanted the two eyes in symmetric view.
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Pachamama One very important concept we learn in our family exercise: everything we really need we can find in nature, from the most spiritual yearning to basic obligation. This is Pachamama: simple, immediate, no-intermediary religion. Because of the society in which we live, we also need technology. But this should be just a complement, important and valued, not a tyrannical, exclusive king. Pachamama is the “Mother Earth�, she is the connection with our natural world. We are grateful to Pachamama for our life. Connecting with the Great Mother, means connecting with the abundance and brightness of life.
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Flying In our excursions we frequently come across Jair, the hydroplane pilot. Sometimes we fly with him. At other times, while on the river, the children spot him in the sky and they jump and cry out his name‌ He promises to Kinan and Geo that he will be teach them how to fly.
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144, the family nest Here is our home: 144 kms north of Manaus, at 144 meters above sea level. There are 270 hectares of primary forest. The children were born here, and they return here after each expedition.
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In the house Our house life helps relax our little adventurers. It is time to study mathematics, and to harvest and cook regional crops.
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Cashew festival The time of the cashew is a celebration that lasts a month, always with the same intensity.
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Amapa At 144, the milk comes from a tree, the Amapรก tree (Parahacornia amapa). In the early morning we go to the forest, we scratch the thick bark of the tree, and put the container at its base. In the afternoon, when we come back, the cup is full of milk. The amapa milk is not only medicinal, but also a fortifying food.
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An important talk I don’t know what they talked about that day in the forest. I stayed away just looking at the scene through my 200 mm lens, before climbing a tree. I took a few shots, and was distracted by my work. However that night, when I asked what they had discussed, I realized that a lot of new stories had been born.
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Aloft Gear-climbing the majestic 180 feet Dinizia excelsa or free-climbing the small flowered inga tree, they both are an expansion to our gag of ground-level games.
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Treetop Camping Climbing trees is not just a sport. It connects us with daily life, forces us to carry only the simplest things into the treetops that will allow us to stay aloft a day, and sometimes a night also. Animals are much easier to observe in the early morning. We are not arriving, but are already in place.
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Treetime What child has not experienced at least once the fantastic world of trees? Climbing up the higher branches to stay away from the ground residents, watching them from up there in that quiet refuge. Those remembrances were kept in the depths of our memory, awaiting our return to a ritual of healing and protection. Back again as an adult in that world of freedom and adventure, we are taken back to our times as children. Now it is called Tree Climbing, but the feeling is the same. We have back on our faces that spontaneous smile of our childhood, and our eyes shine as they rarely do in our grown-up people’s lives. This is “treetime”, a dimension of time that creates a very special experience as a source of joy, and as a living connection with the innocence of children.
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Geo shows how the fertilization works: the pollen is literally sprayed on the back of the bees, where it sticks like glue. It contains male gametes that can fertilize the female ovule, to which pollen is transported by the insect.
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Scents of seduction The fragrance of the flowers attracts the big bees. Coated with the scent of the orchid Catasetum saccatum, the bigheaded insect is ready to seduce its female. The orchids take advantage to reproduce themselves.
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Paphinia grandiflora The feeling that this flower inspires in me is one of great mystery and, not incidentally, a great deal of effort was required on our part to take this picture. We discovered the plant in the nearblooming phase in the Ducke Reserve, and we estimated that it should open within a week. So, we marked the estimated flowering date in our calendar of expeditions and, when the time arrived, we rode the three hours that separated us from the Paphinia. We found it in the same place, as marked by our GPS, but it was exactly as when we first saw it, not yet ready to bloom. We returned with another expedition a week later, but it was not yet time to see it in all its beauty. And, as if that was not enough, that day it rained incessantly. There was only one alternative: to build a small covering of canvas, string it up on the trees surrounding our flower. The tarp was made safe at critical points by my companions. We did so and, once beneath that tarp, I carefully wiped my upper body and pulled out the camera‌
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Ariau Amazon Towers The ecolodge Ariau Amazon Towers is the base of our family on the Negro river. Here we climb trees, and we receive tourists. The pictures show the area during the blooming of the taxizeiros trees, in September.
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Pirana fishing It is very easy to fish pirana. The challenge is to get the fish off the hook‌
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Major treeclimbers From left to right, spider monkey (Ateles paniscus), black-headed uakari (Cacajao melanocephalus), bald-headed uakari (Cacajao calvus), and pied tamarin (Saguinus bicolor).
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Red howler (Alouatta seniculus), wolly monkey (Lagothrix lagotricha), and pygmy marmoset (Cebuella pygmaea).
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Cattleya violacea Dispersed by the wind, thousands of Cattleya seeds look for a propitious shelter to germinate.
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Cattleya eldorado This is one amongst many more ornamental Amazonian species, mainly due to the wide variation observed in their color. The color of the species ranges from the alba variety, which is pure white except for the yellow stain on the lip, to intensely colored pink varieties. From its very first description in 1869, the species was always mentioned for the huge variety of colors. An extreme example is a collection of over 700 flowers which, even when opened at the same time, do not have two flowers that are alike. No nursery containing in its collection C. eldorado, no matter how well structured, can supplant the emotion that you feel when you find natural populations of this species in full bloom in a pristine meadow.
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Dimerandra emarginata We found a small purple spot, a rare orchid, in the trunk of a young kapok tree (Ceiba pentandra) at a height of 30 meters, in the Parana AriaĂş. When I photographed it, I did not know the species, which was identified after library research.
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Brassia lawrenceana From the habit of looking at scenes of life through my macro photography lenses, I have thought a lot about the magnificent architecture of flowers, leaves, and twigs. Here strange beings walk, equipped with very sophisticated sensory apparatus.
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Acacallis cyanea The genus name refers to a Greek nymph, lover of Apollo. Its flowers often bluish, this species can be considered rare because it is very demanding about the environmental conditions it needs to grow. It is difficult to grow outside its natural habitat, yet it is still highly valued in the orchidicultural market. It is found mainly in forested wetland and lowland forests near streams. Very frequently it is found in wetland vegetation, and it is often submerged for two or three months. Its beauty fascinated European botanists during their tours of the Amazon in the early nineteenth century.
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Bromeliads These plants have short and inconspicuous stems. Their leaves are arranged spirally, forming a small pond. Water and organic debris accumulate in this tank, which may harbor very specific flora and fauna. The primary purpose of the roots of epiphytic plants is to fix the plant to the substrate. To obtain nutrients, bromeliads have hairs on the inner surface of its leaves called scales absorbents. These hairs have a specialized ability to absorb water and nutrients directly from the tank.
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Sobralia grandifolia Sobralia macrophylla was one of the most sought-after species in our wanderings over the campina. So, miraculously, one day it showed it up only 5 or 6 meters from the main trail. “It is open and lush for only half a day”, Jefferson, the biologist, had warned. And thus we find ourselves gazing at the Sobralia’s stately exuberance, accomplices to the sun’s bullseye shot.
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Catasetum longifolium This orchid is found exclusively on the Moriche palm, Mauritia flexuosa, where it grows just below the crown of the palm’s leaves. Its thick roots penetrate through the sheath in the decomposition process where the organic matter accumulated profit.
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Brassavola martiana The Brassavola can be found in the lowlands and flooded forests, and less frequently in highland forests. Although its pollinators are unknown, it has already been established that, to attract them, the Brassavola emits a strong odor at night.
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My bird “Yes, this is my preferred bird – says Kinan – I find it all the time”. 107
Cattleya brymeriana This is a rare natural hybrid between C. Eldorado and C. violacea. We marvel at its flowers, which are not those of the Eldorado or the Violet, but has something of both. By a strange set of circumstances, I saw both parent varieties within a single flowering period.
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Encyclia fragrans The Encyclia spreads into dense and thick carpets on the upper branches of the macucu. Fragrans, which in Latin means fragrant, speaks of its strong perfume. At times during the day the perfume is so strong that people walking nearby can become drunk with it. There is Encyclia everywhere.
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Birdwatching We can watch a bird for hours. When we return day after day, the bird becomes accustomed to us. We are part of its environment, and it lets us approach it.
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An old friend An old friend cares the brood, since the pregnancy stage. Children regularly visit him and swim in the dark waters of Negro river with a strong protector. 112
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Tropical Tree Climbing was conceived when Leonide Principe began to get his first tree climbing lessons in 1995 to be put in practice on scientific expeditions focused on photographing Amazonian epiphytes, i.e., orchids, bromeliads, etc. That work was undertaken for a project called “Aerial Plants of the Amazon� which was supported and sponsored by the Department of Culture of the Government of the Amazon State of Brazil. Back then, it was a project that gave much to talk about, even on CNN. After that project, Leo went on several photographic expeditions unrelated to tree climbing, but he also wanted to do something with the knowledge acquired from those early experiences. In 1998 he met Vanessa Marino in Manaus, and after traveling together for 13 months exploring Brazil, Bolivia and Venezuela in a truck turned into a motorhome looking for a place to live, they began to give shape to that old desire when they bought 270 hectares of virgin rainforest in northern Brazil and started building what would later become Tropical Tree Climbing School. In 2006 Leo and Vanessa learned about the work being done by Tree Climbers International (TCI), and in 2007 they contacted Tim Kovar, master instructor of TCI and founder of Tree Climbing Northwest, to begin their recreational tree climbing education. That same year, Tim visited the future tree climbing school for the first time, and together, they began to establish a strong friendship and map out the next steps. Since then, Tropical Tree Climbing has been operating in the Amazon region, taking our customers closer to nature, an experience that allows them to sense a deep connection with the Amazon rainforest. More information: http://www.tropicaltreeclimbing.com/
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Next Treetop family 2 The Quest for the Amazon Giant Trees I never imagined that this would be just the beginning of a very long journey.
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Dwelling among the beauties and mysteries of the Amazon, the Treetop Family endeavor a way of life that propose a direct permanent relashionship with Nature. The book tell the story of this family: they live in the Amazon, much more, they live the Amazon and its uniqueness. Just a few essential words and many many photographs try to create the atmosphere of their daily life. The photographic density of the book wish to imitate the generous biodiversity of the Amazon and the growing permanent astonishement of living inside its nature.
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