A Report from the Field

Laguna del Tigre National Park, Guatemala

For the last 5 days we have been at several areas climbing nests, El Peru, El Burral, and La Corona. These are the same three areas that the Prensa Libre newspaper states on April 14th have out-of-control forest fires threatening. Indeed air around the nests is getting increasingly hazy and one cannot escape the smell of smoke in the air. There are biological stations (rustic camp sites) at all three areas which serve as staging points for biologists, the army, CONAP (those in charge of protected areas in Guatemala), and us.

La Corona is the farthest, a 6-hour drive from Flores. It is also possibly my favorite because it seems that the deeper we go into the forest, we enter not the heart of darkness, but the heart of light and love. Flora and fauna abound, and this permeates into our own beings. With every gut wrenching jolt in the road it seems clearer and clearer to me that I am not separate from jaguar, macaw, tree, monkey, and ape (that would be we humans).

If I am one both with forest and fire starter, then it seems that I too am on fire, and am killing what I love. This is not an easy truth to hold but the beauty and tragedy call to my soul to be a chalice that can hold fire and light, and forest and darkness together. Every tree climbed may show us sick or dying chicks, nests emptied from predators both human and nonhuman, or bright rainbow splashes of bird being that are displayed as the chicks grow into their feathers for their first flight.We never know what the news will be, or what each day will hold for us. On Saturday, April 18 we got up at 3:30 a.m. to leave at 5 a.m. for El Burral, a two-hour drive into the forest with 4 macaw nests along the way. We don’t get very far before the air changes with a sense of warmth too early for the sun’s position, and then around the next curve, fire erupts along the side of the road. We get out to calm the flames down and ride on, only to find the fire and burned areas becoming increasingly more abundant on both sides of the road. We grow concerned because the fire is close to macaw nest trees.