Dr. Ursula Valdez puts a point across to ABCers.
ABC WELCOMES URSULA VALDEZ, May 18, 2016:
Dr. Ursula Valdez thrilled our group with her knowledge and her passion, both for her birds and for the loss of habitat in her homeland, Peru. Now teaching at UW-Bothell, she straddles two vastly different worlds and draws them together.
Dr. Valdez presents her multimedia summary to ABC.
Dr. Valdez is a founder of Centro de Educacion, Ciencia y Conservacion Tambopata (CECCOT) in the Madre de Dios area of SW Peruvian Amazonia, which trains students about the local avifauna. Five years in, the first students are now running the place, to the delight of all. The focus is on research including bird census and banding, as well as education in conservation and sustainability.
We moan about overdevelopment around here, but our local problems pale with the devastation of Amazonia. Dr. Valdez’s research has been mainly in the Madre de Dios area, a spot of record biodiversity, where she and her students have documented many hard-to-find species of birds and some true rarities. Nevertheless, slash-and-burn continues to impact this region more every day, for agriculture including soy and palm oil, cattle, logging, and road building, now with a major highway through Peru from Brazil to the Pacific. Cutting the forest is bad enough, but burning the slag has made smoke a major pollutant spreading way beyond localities, impacting human health and much more.
If there was one topic that made Dr. Valdez even more unhappy than deforestation, it was gold mining. Gold fever, as ever, makes mankind insane, crazy enough to risk their own lives with unsafe mercury handling and not caring about what else is at stake. Methods of mining completely gut the land, as demonstrated by Dr. Valdez’s startling photos. This is land that now can never be returned to habitat. Much of it is illegal, which barely slows it down, and human trafficking is rife in these areas as well.
Dr. Valdez did mention that political change is coming, just very, very slowly. Peru has national parks and reserves, but no funds or will to maintain them. They have a cabinet position that’s just for show at present, but at least it’s there in case they ever get a firebrand in the job. And there’s a national election coming which could help or hinder.
One thing Ursula Valdez did talk about happily was Forest-falcons! Her favorite birds and a main target of her personal research! She showed a slide of the five species found in her area of Peru, including two that are rarely seen, which she concentrated on, Buckley’s and Slaty-backed Forest-falcons. She also showed slides of several other colorful and unusual birds found in her area which her students have found and documented, including Band-tailed Manakin, Rufous-fronted Antthrush, Amazonian Motmot (now split from more northern birds), the very musical Musician Wren, and the Black-spotted Bare Eye, an obligate army ant camp follower, helping to sweep all bugs away.
The 5 species of Forest-falcons in the Madre de Dio region of Peru.
Dr. Valdez has invited ABCers to come down and put in some time with her group next spring, and Kay Pullen will be obtaining information on that prior to the dates involved. Ursula has made believers out of us!
ABC program director with guest presenter, Dr. Ursula Valdez