Tropical Forest special

Available for over a year

Tropical Forest special Quentin hears from biologists working in tropical forests across the world. Borneo Burning The peat forests of Central Kalimantan in Borneo are home to nearly half of the world’s orangutans, but a disastrous policy of clearing the trees to make way for rice paddies led to a collapse in their numbers. Now rice has made way for oil palms and illegal logging. Professor Jack Rieley of Nottingham University started studying the peat forests 25 years ago, and now is a leading activist in trying to preserve what’s left. And Simon Husson of Cambridge University has spent many of the last twelve years deep within the remaining forest, studying the ecology of the orangutans. Amazon flooding Deep in the heart of Amazonia, rivers flood the surrounding forests with up to 15 metres of stagnant water, so that some trees only just peak their tips above the surface. These drowned forests, or Igapo, are so impenetrable they’ve barely been studied. Primatologists Adrian Barnett and Bruna Bezerra are half way through a two year exploration of the region, focusing on the incredibly shy golden-backed uacari monkeys, with vice-like jaws that can break the hardest nuts.