Monthly Archives: October 2010

Penguins adapting for Survival in Antarctica!

Antarctica is home to an amazing range of wildlife that has developed some incredible adaptations in order to survive the harsh conditions they face.

There are no mammals or birds that spend all year living on Antarctica. Penguins are the closest to permanent residents, and emperor penguins are the only animal on Earth that can survive temperatures as low as -50 °C.

Penguins are believed to have evolved from flying birds more than 40 million years ago. To live in the marine environment, they became more streamlined, developing waterproof feathers, short strong legs and webbed feet. Penguins walk upright because their legs are closer to their backs than their stomachs, which assist streamlining. Their flippers are wings that have become flat and broad, with the elbow joint and wrist nearly fused to make strong paddles.

To keep warm in the extreme cold, penguins have adapted in two ways; their physical appearance, and the way their bodies process energy.

Like all animals that live in very cold climates, penguins have large bodies and small appendages (feet, wings or flippers). By keeping feet and flippers close to the body, it is easier to keep warm. They have an amazing number of feathers (approximately ten per square centimetre), which are packed tightly together.

Penguins in Antarctica

Penguins in Antarctica

The physiology of a penguin has also adapted to the extreme cold. When it consumes food in winter, in converts most of the energy into keeping itself warm. However, when a penguin is a chick, it is kept warm by its parent’s body, and instead uses its energy to grow as fast as it can. As it grows older, it relies on its energy less for growing and more for warmth.

The colouration of penguins provides the perfect camouflage while they’re in the water. From above the water, predators find the penguins hard to see because they blend in with the dark depths of the ocean, and from below, predators see the penguin’s white stomach, which blends in with the surface of the sea and underside of icebergs.

Out of the water however, penguins are very conspicuous. Luckily for them, their only land predator is the leopard seal, which is deadly in the water but heavy and slow on the ice.

It is this lack of land predators that has made penguins the most successful animal species in Antarctica. There are around 24 million penguins in Antarctica and the sub Antarctic islands.

Road access to Machu Picchu looking likely

The latest news from Peru is great for travelers.  Peru’s Congress voted unanimously Thursday in support of building a new access road to Machu Picchu.

In a 75-0 vote, lawmakers declared that paving the narrow dirt roads connecting the towns of Ollantaytambo, Santa María and Santa Teresa, located northwest of Machu Picchu, is  “a public necessity and a priority of national interest.”

In January, train service to Machu Picchu was cut off after the Vilcanota River overran its banks, wiping out the rail line and stranding thousands of tourists  for days until they were airlifted out by helicopter. The Inca Citadel, Peru’s biggest tourist attraction, was closed for two months.

Machu Picchu “is an economic resource and a symbol for the nation, and for that reason it is the duty of the state and the Congress to hand down the laws that allow us to guarantee its conservation and adequate accessibility,” said José Carrasco, chairman of the Congressional Budget Committee.

Since the disaster in January, pressure has been mounting from Peru’s tourism sector to develop other routes in and out of Machu Picchu, not only to provide emergency exits from the zone, but also to break the near-monopoly held by PeruRail and the town of Aguas Calientes, located in the gorge below the ruins.

According to reports provided by the National Chamber of Tourism, each day Machu Picchu was closed caused losses in excess of one million dollars.

Proposed alternate road route to Machu Picchu. Click on Image to Enlarge.Proposed alternate road route to Machu Picchu. Click on Image to Enlarge.

Congressman Jorge Foinquinos, chairman of the Foreign Trade Commission, said proposed legislation to build the alternative road access is needed “to provide for every contingency that may occur in the area and not depend exclusively on a rail line.”

The move by Congress puts it on a collision course with Peru’s National Institute of Culture (INC), which has made it clear that it — as the gatekeeper to Machu Picchu — is opposed to creating a new access route that could let the tourism floodgates fly wide open.

Peru’s government has worked hard to appease UNESCO’s demands to lessen the impact of visitors to Machu Picchu. The Andean nation narrowly escaped being added to the list of endangered World Heritage sites following the record surge of visitors in 2008, when the number of tourists far outpaced carrying capacity for the site on several days.

The UNESCO-sponsored Management Plan for Machu Picchu called for no more than 917 visitors per day – and no more than 385 visitors at any one time – while the INC has recommended a maximum carrying capacity of 2,000 visitors. Peru’s central government advocated in 2002 for 3,400, and the parties settled in 2008 on a daily limit of 2,500 visitors.

The deal was struck after the Peruvian government proposed a $132.5 million emergency plan to preserve the ruins and limit the flow of tourists, as well as take measure to prevent forest fires and landslides.

Carlos Canales, president of Peru’s National Chamber of Tourism (Canatur), has called into question the technical basis that the INC used for setting that limit at 2,500 visitors per day and advocates doubling the figure.

The INC’s study “was not prepared by specialists,” Canales contended in Monday’s edition of Peru’s main business daily Gestión. “Nor have international methodologies been used to measure the environmental impact and the burden caused by the number of visitors.”

“You can distribute the number of tourist routes into the sanctuary and you could easily double the amount estimated by the INC and reach up to 5,000 visitors a day,” Canales said in a statement on Canatur’s Web site.

Argentina the Most Popular in South America?

Recent reports have confirmed that Argentina has doubled its influence on the global tourism market since 2003.

In the last decade, Argentina has been trying to move away from being a relatively unknown South American giant with good beef, horsemeat and footballers. It is fast becoming the leader in South American tourism. Not only are many Argentineans traveling abroad, but a large number of tourists have been visiting Argentina itself.

The figure actually prove it as total of 2 million tourists arrived to Argentina last year, leaving revenue in the region

Buenos Aires - The capital of Argentina

Buenos Aires - The capital of Argentina

of $2.7 billion. Many of the visitors have been coming from neighboring Brazil, with the big spenders arriving also from North America. People are starting to realize that Argentina has the best educated population in South America, thus leaving them most prepared for the influx of new tourists. Argentina is also relatively safe, in comparison to many countries nearby.

The airline industry has reacted to the surge in Argentinean tourism by arranging more flights to and from the South American country. For example, there are going to be non-stop flights between London and Buenos Aires starting in 2011. Also the direct services between Sydney and Buenos Aires has had a significant impact on arrival numbers. As Argentina becomes more popular, other cities are certain to come into play throughout the country.

To find out more on Chimu Adventures’ Argentina tours, visit our website.

Another ancient treasure unearthed in Peru

Peru is often described as the “Egypt of the Americas” Every year, scores of new ruins are found. Our intrepid reporter discovers ruins in the Amazon region of Peru near the town of Jaen, at over 4000 years old it is one of the oldest sites ever found in the Americas.

Over four decades, the Hermógenes Mejía Solf museum in Jaén, Cajamarca, an area of northern Peru where the Andes start descending into the Amazon, has displayed more than 3000 fossils, items of pottery and stone objects, all of mysterious beauty from cultures of the ancient Amazonia. Locals have always been amazed by the diversity of items found, though had no idea of their history.

Ruins near Jaen, Peru

Ruins near Jaen, Peru

The only attempt to clear things up came from Gamonal Ulises Guevara, a noted librarian that since 1971 has attempted the difficult task of organising the collection, much of which is without context – first found by looters, then sold to collectors who went on to donate to the museum.

Gamonal knew that behind the items, that didn’t all seem to come from the same time and place, there was a page of history waiting to be read – and with the help of archaeologist Quirino Olivera, since May of this year, that missing page has started to be revealed.

Less than 10 minutes from the center of Jaén, a group of researchers supported by residents unearthered two temples, which according to early indications, belong to a culture that could be as much as 4000 years old and would have been the ancestors of the Bracamoros culture, who straddled the present-day Peru-Ecuador border.

At both temples some 14 tombs have been uncovered, including some containing the bones of infants and adolescents, who were placed as offerings at different times over 800 years of the building’s use.

The areas where the temples are located are known as Monte Grande and San Isidro, areas at risk for a long time of being ploughed and used for agriculture before finally because used as a public dump.

When archaeologists started work they found large semicircular walls, first made of mud mortar then others made of stones weighing up to 200kg.

The team was surprised by the technique used to decorate the walls with different color mud, and because the 8 phases of construction were in perfect alignment.

Perhaps most astonishing is that the temples, according to Quirino, appear to have been built around 2000 BC… some 4000 years ago. This is the first discovery of its kind in the region, and the first from this period of time in any contact zone between the Andes and the Amazon.

“We could be facing one of the earliest civilisations of Peru. If we keep digging we could find evidence dating back to before Chavín, Caral and Ventarrón. Not in the Andes nor in the coast will anything have been found that is quite so old”, Olivera explained proudly.

In the temples there have been found snail and spondylus shells, indicating the the civilisation had contact with people in Peru’s Amazon and with the Ecuadorian coast.

The excavations were carried out under an integration program between Peru and Ecuador, which includes the basins of the rivers in May, Chinchipe, Marañón, Utcubamba and Puyango-Tumbes.

Amazon treehouse anyone?

With a huge range of Amazon lodges and experiences available, there isnt one quite like this.. our intrepid explorer finds out more..

THE night before I fly to the rainforest, I stay at a hotel in Cuzco. Stretching the length of the dining room is a startling mural that shows a fantasy of an Amazonian paradise: bare-breasted maidens bathing in pools surrounded by compliant jungle animals.

inkaterra_tambopataI’m not quite sure what I expected from the Amazon. It has become such a romanticised ecological symbol that it’s hard to see the trees for the wood. This is why I want to spend some time in it, on a small, malaria-free reserve near the Peruvian town of Puerto Maldonado, near the Bolivian border.

Specifically, I’m headed for Reserva Amazonica, owned by the hotel group Inkaterra, which has built a luxurious bedroom 27 metres high, 35 ground-level cabanas and a canopy bar.

When the lodge first told me I’d be sleeping up a tree, I had assumed it was merely Latin hyperbole; but no, here is the tree house, clinging to the slender trunk of a cepanchila. To get here, you must climb a wooden tower and a series of rope walkways. The lodge also has Peru’s longest canopy walkway I am told!

As the first guest and guinea pig (not a comforting concept in Peru), I’m issued with a panic button so that, if necessary, a member of staff can rush in, strap me to their chest and abseil to the ground. In the end, I keep my finger off the button, although sleeping so high is certainly an intense experience.

The nearest analogy I can conjure is that of being in a small cabin at sea, with the wind and outside noise amplified, which is quite something the night a group of monkeys rattles the walkway and plays on the roof.

The dawn chorus is raucous and spectacular, from the horned screamer bird that some say sounds like a donkey drowning, to the ”water-dropping-from-a-giant-tube” gloop-gloop-gloop noises of the oropendola. There are also tree frogs that sound exactly like digital cameras bleeping.

My guide, Eric, joins me in the tree house at 5am so we can see the sun rise over the top of the Amazon rainforest. It feels biblical, a moment of creation. I have become used to seeing the sun slowly filter its way to the forest floor – but above the canopy it comes up fast, like a searchlight, and illuminates the heads of the trees so they look like fibre-optic lamps.

Eric lists the ways in which local people can survive here: by logging or gold-panning, which is environmentally destructive; by gathering brazil nuts, which is slow and subject to market whims; but the best of all, he says, is you – the tourist.

Tourism is one of the few economic imperatives that can persuade a government to preserve a rainforest.

He might be right: if we really want to save the Amazon, we should go and stay there.

Chimu Adventures offers a range of different lodges in the Amazon as well as Amazon river cruises. We also sell the Inkaterra lodge. Prices start at $390 AUD per night. Contact us on info@chimuadventures.com for more information.

Source www.smh.com.au

Environmentalists Welcome New Law to Protect Glaciers

Environmental organisations in Argentina are celebrating the passage of a law restricting the extraction of minerals, oil and gas near glaciers such as Perito Moreno in El Calafate, in order to protect these vast freshwater reserves.

The Senate approved the bill to preserve glaciers and their surrounding areas Thursday which is great news for the tourism industry.  Particularly Perito Moreno glacier in El Calafate which attracts thousands of visitors a year but is rapidly decreasing in size.

The new law stipulates that glaciers such as Perito Moreno are “public goods” and forbids “destroying or moving” the huge ice masses. Stiff penalties are set for those who infringe its regulations.

The most novel aspect of the law, according to lawmakers who voted for it, is that it puts the Argentine Institute of Snow Research, Glaciology and Environmental Science in charge of making a nationwide inventory of glaciers.

Glaciers in Argentina

Glaciers in Argentina

Once the inventory is prepared, the Institute’s experts will vet investment projects in protected areas, and will be empowered to bring extraction work to a halt in mines and oilfields already operating in glacier zones or periglacial areas.

The Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (FARN), an NGO, applauded the passage of the law and highlighted the key role played in its approval by citizen participation, through the proposals of civil society organisations.

“The glaciers and the high mountain valleys will be protected, with their natural resources and huge reservoirs of water which have essential strategic value,” María Eugenia di Paola, the head of FARN, told IPS.

In Greenpeace’s view, the passage of the law was “a big step by Congress, in spite of the insistent and disproportionate pressure exerted by mining corporations against a glacier protection bill.”

According to Giardini, mining companies spent millions on newspaper ads nationwide, urging lawmakers not to support the bill, as well as on consultants who lobbied legislators from mining provinces up to the last minute.

The law also puts major infrastructure projects in the vicinity of glaciers under the scrutiny of the Institute of Snow Research, Glaciology and Environmental Science.

Source: ipsnews.net