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Vinaceous amazon parrot in an Atlantic Forest remnant in Paraguay during our monitoring in August 2021 (photo by Dr. Andres Alvarez) It’s a good thing that mirrors are scarce during field work in parrot conservation. I mean, I don’t really want to know what my face looks like after getting up at 1:30 a.m. to begin a day of parrot counting and observation. On some days we get to sleep in until 4:30 a.m. during our two weeks of nest monitoring and population in two ecosystems in Paraguay – the Atlantic Forest and the Cerrado. There may not be mirrors but there are brutal selfies in the cold pre-sunrise light But perhaps looking at parrots is like looking into a mirror, for aren’t they really the expression of this earth’s beauty and characteristics molded into DNA, just as we are? (We share 65% of our DNA with birds, and about that much as well with bananas and slugs!). What made them also made us, and what is unmaking them is also humanity’s undoing – extraction economies, inequality, consumerism, and climate change, to start. Underneath all of this is a false sense of separation from nature and other beings that gives permission for fickle and plastic cultural sculpting of human individuals and societies who treat others as having less worth and dignity. How do we address this “othering” that causes us to think that those different from us are not as deserving of our concern or rightful sharing of earth’s bounty, and hence causes great harm to species, from humans to corals? One cure is to encourage more empathy. By looking deep into the lives of others, by really seeing and listening to them, we can understand and even feel with our bodies the plight and perfection of life around us. Our inspection camera for looking into nests in Paraguay (thanks to Henry Krauer, pictured above, who builds our parrot monitoring equipment) Using the camera - on a cloudy day you might only need two people On a sunny day - it takes three! Here's what we hope to find - a parrot chick! (a 2 week old red-and-green macaw in this case) Sometimes it only takes one person, such as above where Dr. Andres Alvarez is preparing the inspection camera to look in a termateria where a peach-fronted parakeet might be nesting (photo below by Dr. Alvarez) Watching birds, such as in parrot conservation, for long periods of time, changes one. I remember a prominent avian veterinarian once remarking on how I had gone rogue, leaving caring for captive parrots behind, unless strictly for conservation efforts. He said that all those hours of looking at wild parrots had turned me into one! Watching birds begins well before sunrise, and also well after, on most days Conservation also means watching not just yourself, but also helping others to see (Guarani children in Paraguay accompanying a parrot count- Photo by Dr. Diana Pesole) Perhaps he was right, except that I didn’t turn into one, I had always been one. The veil has been slowly dropped away over the years so that I don’t know where feathers end and hair begins. Without a doubt, parrots are different species than humans, and individuals within each species are distinct. I cannot equivalate my experience or cultural shaping to theirs, or expect to speak for them. We not only watch and see, but we listen. What do the parrots say to you? (Dr. Diana Pesole listening for parrot chicks in the nest) Still, the long hours watching nests and seeing their behavior means that they have spoken to me abundantly. And what they have said is, “Look into our being as if into a mirror and drop your childish ways. And remember the greatest of ways forward is love." What does the turquoise-fronted parrot say to you? (This is a female that heard us and popped out of her nest cavity, and then flew away with her mate - photo by Dr, Andres Alvarez) Please join us and others for a Birding for Life Walk this weekend in Central Park, NY. We will listen to what the birds there, and each other, have to say.

These past two weeks in Paraguay the song "Desperado" kept coming to mind. In part it was because we were with cowboys every day, crossing fences to get to parrot nests. The song also seemed to sing of humanity's condition.... Desperado, why don't you come to your senses? You've been out ridin' fences for so long now Oh, you're a hard one I know that you got your reasons These things that are pleasin' you Can hurt you somehow Desperado, oh, you ain't gettin' no younger Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home And freedom, oh freedom well, that's just some people talkin' Your prison is walking through this world all alone Desperado, why don't you come to your senses? Come down from your fences, open the gate It may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you You better let somebody love you (Let somebody love you) You better let somebody love you before it's too late Lyrics by the Eagles, "Desperado" sung below by Linda Rondsdtadt The situation of parrots in Paraguay is desperate. We may only have 100 red-and-green macaws left, and there hasn’t been a documented successful nesting of blue-and-yellow and hyacinth macaws in years. On top of this, the habitat continues to undergo intensification of use with eucalyptus crops removing the pastures, trees, and termitaries that the yellow-faced parrot uses. Peace-fronted parakeet (photo by Dr. Andres Alvarez) Enter into the equation the cattle ranches that are considering becoming reserves and ecotourism destinations. We work in the north Concepción area along the Apa river that separates Paraguay from Brazil, and there is a growing consciousness of the plight of the parrots and what must be done to protect them. (I can’t honor these ranches by naming them because we aim to keep locations of parrots vague to discourage international criminal buyers from targeting our project areas). Desperados are disappearing our parrots. Lead cowboy showing me his "Fly Free Parrot" wrist band that he still wears after having received it two years ago Out model is to work with local people and communities, and in the case where these don’t exist where parrot nest, with owners of agricultural lands, such as in Guatemala, and here in Paraguay. This means working with cowboys (or should we call them parrotboys) who on their daily rounds discover macaw nests and report them to us. With their presence they also protect them. Inspecting a possible macaw nest on the ranch Local ranch hand helping us inspect a parrot nest In some areas this partnership with estancias (ranches) has lowered the poaching rate and it appears as if the macaw population might be increasing, although the breeding season of 2021 so far is yielding scant nests. We don’t know why and it might be a combination of things: climate change, annual variability in precipitation, and the wildfires. While we were surveying nests in August 2021 we couldn’t see the sun for most of the day except when it set blood red into the horizon. Red sun through the smoke of nearby wildfires "Parrotboy" showing me his burned hat, "that happenened when I was saving parrot nests from the wildfires." Thanking the workers for their participation Thanking the workers for their participation After inspecting a nest, thanking the workers with posters, stickers, and patches Some say that the time of parrots on the earth is setting, but as long as we can support the people who live and work on the land, we can find a way together. This is not some romantic fairy tale of cowboys riding off into the sunset, but of a rising bright hope. Our prison, and that of caged birds, is walking through this world as if we were alone. We are not. If we can come to understand that, then we might all one day fly free.

During the hard months of the 2020-2021 Covid-19 pandemic, something remarkable happened between birds and humans in many parts of the world. The news accounts were full of people saying that they thought there were more birds in their area. However, one study in Spain demonstrated that there actually weren’t more birds in urban areas; the birds had simply shifted their activity and apparently were more detectable by people. Some thought that the birds were louder, but another study showed that in San Francisco white-crowned sparrows had actually decreased their calls by decibels. Researchers theorized that birds didn’t need to call as loud as before to be heard over human traffic and other noise, which had decreased significantly during the shutdown. Humans thought the birds were being more vocal, but instead, people were just quieter. Time has slowed down for many, and without the many daily distractions and choices about where one might go or what one might do, suddenly the birds became more visible and more audible. We saw them, even though they had always been there. And perhaps we wanted to and needed to see them more. Sales of binoculars, bird books, bird food, feeders, and baths have skyrocketed during the pandemic. Humans started to pay more attention. Though the ongoing pandemic has created great harm, there are some silver linings. By focusing and noticing, we take the first steps on our way to understanding those different than us, which is followed by empathy, compassion, and even love. In this way, noticing birds is like so many other mindful practices that can result in greater connection to life in its various forms. This in turn results in more open curiosity and acceptance, and ultimately more peace, joy, and a corresponding behavioral adaption to care for oneself and others. The songs of birds has always been there, but we have not stilled our inner chatter enough to understand what they are saying to us. Or perhaps it’s because we don’t have the infrastructure to support birding as a mindfulness practice that would yield more prominent results. Indeed, there are many birdwatching and conservation organizations, not to mention equipment, books, online resources, designated birding areas, and movies. I once heard a comic quip, “If you want to sell something, slap an image of a bird on it.” An estimated $41 billion is spent each year from birdwatching activities in the USA and this doesn’t include the many items that “have a bird slapped on them,” including feather images. Birds and feathers attract consumers of all kinds who purchase art, clothes, dishes and coffee cups, jewelry, and publications. Even if books aren’t about birds, many have birds in their title or use birds for cover art. Revenue increased for the pet industry during the pandemic from the sale of birds, as did the numbers of households with birds in them. There are a multitude of ways that humans benefit from birds – as pets, icons, metaphors, entertainment, religious symbols, inspiration, art or research subjects, food, and sources of jobs and income. Perhaps more than any other benefit, birding as an intentional mindful practice provides people with greater health, well-being, awareness, and presence, and also helps us move into modes of being that result in better care for life on this planet. As such, birds are excellent subjects for mindfulness practice, because in most environments they are easily observable. They can show up in the most human-packed or degraded environments. When they are present, birds are often up in the air instead of buried in the ground, such as some small mammals, and many are quite vocal. They grab our attention, which is a first step in any focused or mindful practice. Beyond these reasons, we need to focus on birds because so many are at great risk of disappearing. In North America, between 1970-2020, there were 3 billion less birds in the world, with 50 million less of those present from only 19 species. That’s a quarter of all birds gone. According to a 2018 report, there are 1,469 bird species globally threatened with extinction, which equals one out of eight species. The threats are many, and are mostly caused by humans. The causes include habit degradation and destruction -- largely due to agricultural expansion, deforestation, and invasive species -- as well as hunting and trapping. These same threats are also impacting other species, and overall ecosystem health, with one report in 2019 suggesting that 1 million species of all types are endangered. There is a catastrophic decline in biodiversity that endangers a broad swath of individual species and communities of species. The evidence is strong that birds, people, and life in general on the planet are in trouble. As in all mindful practices, birdwatching helps us to grow our awareness and understanding of this, while also not being debilitated by the destruction we see around us (although, on most days as there is no denying that mindfulness does not result in perfect presence, but in seeing how each and every moment is perfect just as it is). In the movie the “Thin Red Line,” the soldier hero is musing about the beauty of the world while engaged in combat on a Pacific island. The bombing tears his surroundings apart and he comes across an injured parrot chick that was blasted from their home. He muses, “One man looks at a dying bird and thinks there's nothing but unanswered pain, that death's got the final word, it's laughing at him. Another man sees that same bird, feels the glory, feels something smiling through it.” I do not share this quote lightly, for the disappearance of bird species and their individual suffering, especially that of parrots, has been a great burden and motivator in my life. As a wildlife veterinarian working on front line parrot conservation in the Americas for close to four decades, I know what it is like to hold dying birds in one’s hand and see species’ existence slip from human imagination and communities. Each loss feels to me as if I have been kicked in the gut. Dwelling on that reaction has not proven advantageous for me, except to share it with others, so that humans may be awakened and life might be guarded. I wish to collect the needed community around me, so that we may mourn together. But, I believe that birds are asking more of me, and of you, including having a stronger, more joyful, and more resilient response to their plight. Do not doubt that I struggle to accept a bird’s life and death as part of the beautiful whole. Yet I know, more and more deeply, that by being present with birds, all that is before me in my days of parrot conservation is perfection. Despite this ever-present perfection, one does not retreat from attempting to end the suffering. One Earth Conservation will be leading two “Birding for Life” walks in the New York area in September (on the 4th and 18th in Westchester's Marshlands Conservancy and Manhattan's Central Park, respectively), so that together we can see the perfection before us, while doing all we can to end suffering. The spiritual journey's paradox of acceptance while also taking radical risks to change the way we live is no easy path. By “we” I don’t mean “you alone,” but all of us together. Let us bird together, for each other, for the children of the future, for birds, and for all life. If you’d like to join us, or find out more, please click here for more information.

Parrot team in Guatemala, April 2021, with Dr. LoraKim Joyner This week, One Earth Conservation teams up with Cuerpo de Conservación in Honduras and CONAP in Guatemala to conduct the first bi-national parrot population count in this Atlantic coast region. Our target species is the endangered yellow-headed amazon parrot, but we will count all the parrot species, because illegal trapping for the pet trade is high and all parrot populations in this area are under threat. We do this even knowing that counting parrots is notoriously imprecise. With training and repeated counts we can improve precision and grow our ability to analyze possible trends over the years, which would let us know if we are having success or not. This means painstakingly keeping to the same methodology between people and between years, and crunching the data long after the data is collected. I for one do not like this detail work, though I have come to learn that monitoring is an important and critical tool in conservation. Parrot counts also yield a host of other information that we can use for other than assessing our success, such as locating parrot roosting, nesting, and foraging areas. The counting process also strengthens our teams, recruits new conservationists, supports people’s livelihoods through stipends given for participation, and grows commitment to the birds as we spend more time with them and understand them better. Likewise, we grow our commitment to one another. There is nothing like getting a vehicle unstuck in the mud or hunkering down under a tarp during storms to realize how much we wish to contribute to one another on our conservation team. For the following reasons we emphasize parrot monitoring: to grow the chances for success, to see if we are having success, and to see if we need to change our activities to decrease harm and increase benefit. Conservation activities can in fact cause harm, sometimes greatly. In one project, Tasmania devils (photo above) were introduced onto Maria Island because of the need to establish populations that were free of the devil facial tumor disease, which has severely reduced health and populations in other regions. As predators, however, the introduced devils wiped out the little penguin colony there. Perhaps as many as 3,000 pairs of this penguin species are now gone from the island. All conservationists make mistakes, and projects can take a negative direction or meander along with no evidence of positive impact. Ecology is complicated, and tweaking the few parameters that we can might have unintended consequences or lackluster results. Weighing against caution is the urgency we feel to do something, now, because of the dire state of so many species and biotic communities. Alas, there is rarely enough money or time for monitoring, let alone the ability to do the analysis that could tell us what we could or should be doing. If we just counted the parrots in Guatemala and Honduras every year for the decades it might take to understand what is happening to the population, without conducting any other conservation activities, the birds would be gone. Population monitoring might also drain resources from the little we have, constraining our ability to actually do the needed conservation activities. It’s a dilemma, because if don’t do the monitoring and analysis we don’t have the evidence to make informed decisions, and yet, I know of very few parrot conservation projects that have the resources to do the necessary monitoring. I am working with a group of parrot researchers around the world to try to discern if there are certain conservation activities or parameters of a project that can indicate success. We fear that we just won’t have that many projects that are able to do the ideal thorough and long term monitoring and analysis. The biggest result of this survey we are constructing might be that we don’t know what makes a successful parrot project, because we don’t have the evidence to prove it was successful. But I think that it is okay, for we would be looking hard at the deficits in parrot conservation. Learning from negative or unknown outcomes is a worthwhile pursuit, even if not an altogether satisfying one for our egos and hard work. Nick Salafsky, founder of Pathways to Success, recently said during an interview with Mongabay… “Perhaps the most important predictor of success is the attitude of the people in an organization – whether they are ultimately interested in merely perpetuating their programs and their jobs versus being open and willing to critically examine and learn from their work." People’s attitudes are also important in another aspect – in that we are there for each other, other beings, and this earth. If we can center this, and question with empathetic curiosity all we do and why we do it, then perhaps the exact details of how we know we are succeeding won’t matter as much, because in reality, we will be succeeding.

Scarlet macaw parent flying to their nest in Honduras Wherever One Earth Conservation has projects, there is tremendous pressure from the international and domestic wildlife trade to meet the demand of those who want parrots. Perhaps they do not know that to satisfy human desire, thousands of wild birds are sacrificed from the already drastically reduced and endangered populations of parrots. I tell you this because, as in the words from WS Rendra: I hear a voice, the cry of a wounded animal; someone shoots an arrow at the moon. A small bird has fallen from the nest. People must be awakened; witness must be given. So that life can be guarded. Our community and organizational partners go far and wide to guard nests. Here is a summary of their valiant and impressive work for the 2020-2021 nesting season. In La Moskitia, Honduras, so far 9 nests of 126 have been poached. The nesting season continues through July, with some nests fledging later. Parrot rangers in La Moskitia, Honduras working hard! In Cuyamel, Honduras, it’s possible that all 3 nests of yellow-headed amazon were poached. This is a devastatingly low number of active nests. The nesting season ended in May. Yellow-headed amazon nest in 2021 In Punta Manabique, Guatemala, only 1 nest of 14 was poached. This is an incredible result given the weekly presence of poachers. The nesting season ended in June. Rangers in Guatemala with confiscated poaching gear (they caught the poachers in the act of poaching under the nest tree!) On the Pacific Slope of Guatemala almost one third of our nests were lost to poachers. The disturbing news is that we could only confirm the presence of a total of 7 nests in 7 locations – a frighteningly low number of active nests considering the area covered. The nesting season ended in May. Dr. LoraKim Joyner with rangers in Guatemala In Karasabai, Guyana, the parrot rangers are learning to protect their sun parakeets from poachers, and we documented our first successfully protected nests in the months leading up to the pandemic in 2020. Ranger activity has nearly stopped for the last 6 months because of the high risk of Covid-19 infections passing into Guyana from neighboring Brazil. The nesting season is largely unknown for this species, but current evidence indicates that the parakeets may breed nearly year-round, with a slight break in August and September. Parakeet rangers in Guyana on their way out for a 4-day patrol In Rewa, Guyana, the parrot rangers mostly work to monitor nests, and not to protect, as the village has forbidden trapping, which is otherwise legal in Guyana. Nests were lost to natural causes, but not because of humans. The nesting season is nearly over. On Ometepe Island in Nicaragua, 4 out of 52 nests were lost this past year due to poaching. The nesting season ends in May. Rewa parrot rangers training the next generation In Concepcion, Paraguay, we have parrot protectors and 22 macaw nests were protected, and maybe only one was poached. We start the 2021-2022 nesting season in Paraguay this month. The nesting season ends in December. The macaws we love and protect in Paraguay In many areas our success is growing, but it is a fragile thing. For instance, the poaching and threats of violence towards our parrot protectors in many areas was higher this year than the year before. We must find a way to curtail a possible trend of increased loss by evaluating our strategies and perhaps changing them. Road block team led by ICF and joined by police, military, and Apu Puani (Scarlet macaw) rangers One way that we are trying to improve our strategies in La Moskitia Honduras is to place road checks along the road in conjunction with the forestry service, the police, and the military. Of the many nests pilfered, and the chicks doomed to early deaths and a lifetime of low welfare and suffering, these road blocks only confiscated one olive-throated parakeet. Confiscated olive-throated parakeet being turned over by ICF to the Rescue and Liberation Center of Mabita But at the least the life of this one was saved. Youngsters of two species "playing" with each other It is not much, but it matters a great deal to this parakeet, who did not quit chattering nearly all of the daylight hours where I was there in May. What do we hear this parakeet say? Perhaps what Leonard Cohen sang in his song "Anthem," Here are the words in full: The birds they sing, at the break of day Start again, I heard them say. Don’t dwell on what has passed away Or what is yet to be. Olive-throated parakeet overseeing feeding of the Center's chicks Conservation is both healing the invisible wounds that would otherwise never pass away, and a letting go of results. This is no easy place to be – to live with the tragedy and not knowing its continued course. But what I do know is the parakeet telling me the beauty of her life, inviting us to take with us the great wonder and loss of the past year, and start the nesting season of 2021-2022 with a freshness of spirit fed by this international community of care. Thank you for being a part through your witness and contributions. If you'd like to celebrate with us join us for our Fall Gala - Feeding Our Spirit with Birds and Ballads.

As part of parrot conservation efforts, we often include formal education and awareness programs, such as visiting schools and distributing materials. Sometimes the simplest, and often most impactful, method is to be in relation with the children while you are doing conservation work. Below are some of the young conservationists with whom I had the honor to interact during my May visit to our parrot conservation project in La Moskitia, Honduras. Part of our conservation work includes staffing a rescue center where wild parrots are brought to be cared for, and ultimately released. Anayda Panting (above), the Director, feeds the many chicks with her ever-present helpers and learners. They also help feed the older birds (below). The children also start learning veterinary medicine at young ages. Above is Ireni, who is only twelve-years-old, helping us examine a yellow-naped amazon parrot to see if the bird can be liberated soon. Helpers are also sometimes even much younger (below). Unfortunately, sometimes the birds we care for die, such as this fledgling olive-throated parakeet who just fell from the sky, apparently injured by a hawk. The young bird was hurt badly and didn't survive long. So I asked the children if they would help me bury the bird, and they participated with a resounding "Si!" It didn't take much input on my part for them to care for the bird in death, as they do in life. A big part of conservation work is communication, and in this village, one place to use one's cell phone is to stand on a stump in the middle of the village. I go a couple of times a day and always have company when I do so. I often have to share the trunk with the children who can crowd me out, as below. When possible, we invite children to accompany us when we climb up to parrot nests to check on the birds' health. Here are our helpers gathered after we climbed an active scarlet macaw nest that was in the center of the village. Conservation work also involves maintaining equipment and vehicles, and the children are ever present, learning as we work - sometimes even children of other species! Besides monitoring and protecting nests, we also conduct parrot population counts, in which we involve the children every year. At the end of this count, we distributed "Fly Free Parrot" wrist bands written in Spanish and Miskitu. The group picture turned into a game to see if we could imitate calls from the parrots they are saving. Pretending we are birds helps us empathize with them, and so when we can, we ask, "What Does the Parrot Say?" And I ask of you dear reader, what do these children say to you?

We have an amazing team of parrot conservationists in the La Moskitia area of Honduras. I finally had a chance to work with them again in person after a long time of Covid-19-related travel restrictions. After 11 years of working in this area, my admiration for these indigenous people continues to rise. May these following photos show you a small piece of the courage and commitment of these people, and their work. We work for the wild parrot flocks of La Moskitia - the birds are a fierce team, as are the human conservationists Parrot ranger from the community of Suhi - he bikes tens of kilometers a day Parrot ranger of Rus Rus - he motorcycles tens of kilometers every day Parrot ranger from the community of Wahabispan - he walks tens of kilometers every day Parrot rangers of Rus Rus and Mabita - part of the women's program. This day they are in the project truck, but normally they walk, you can guess, right? Many kilometers a day! Here the women rangers organize before going out into the field. The women's program, managed by One Earth's NGO partner INCEBIO, and funded by the USFWS, supports them with stipends, a day care center, and regular meals for their children and for themselves. All our coordinators have to meet for hours when not in the field to organize the work and to record data, but at least they can dress more comfortably! The two teams, women and men, work closely together, such as the two lead coordinators, Santiago Lacuth and Caren Lacuth, shown here weighing a wild macaw chick after conducting a physical exam and banding the bird. Some of our parrot rangers are also tree climbers, so they can inspect the condition of macaw chicks in a nest. But first they have to get to the tree! Our parrot ranger from the community of Pranza reviews pictures of a macaw nest he has just taken While his father from Pranza is up in the tree, his son, our youngest parrot ranger, waits patiently below Our lead coordinator from Mocoron continues to work, even though he cannot walk after a motorcycle accident. He's not walking kilometers a day, but his team (pictured below), who he directs, does. Our parrot team extends all the way to Puerto Lempira and ICF (the forestry service). They do all kinds of work for conservation, including helping us monitor nests and arranging for military check points (pictured below). The military and the police are also on Team Parrot. Narciso Montoya, one of our parrot rangers, is buried here. He was murdered in March 2021, and his spirit will walk with us, and fly with the parrots, forever

Roxana was finishing up dinner when all of a sudden the water came up fast from both the old and new riverbeds that separate Guatemala from Honduras. Hurricane Iota was packing a bigger punch than any had ever experienced in this area before. She ran, as did her children and spouse, to place everything in and around their home as high as possible. They tried to bring to safety as many animals as they could, including their dogs, who they secured in the higher community building. One dog escaped and joined them in their flooded house. The others did not and they were never seen again. In fact, this lone dog was the only dog to survive from the entire village. I wondered if he remembered this loss, because when we got into a boat to leave his village in late April 2021, he cried to come with us. Floods can do that to anyone, for they leave behind so much traumatic debris in our memories. On our way into the Guatemalan village that had been flooded, with the lone surviving dog Roxana’s family and their surviving dog had to spend the night in a flooded house, waiting to be rescued the next day. Her husband, Miguel, never did sleep that night, as he was busy helping people to rescue their belongings, all to no avail. They lost everything. Roxana's family awaiting rescue Their house the day of their rescue, hammock under water Five months later their home is mostly recovered, and my hammock is dry where it would have been under water. Thank you to this family for giving me a safe and comfortable place to sleep and a refuge for the parrots we all love. The family was transported via boat to town, but then they had to be rescued from the town as well, and were finally taken to a high spot in the road where they spent a couple of days until a more permanent shelter could be found. When they returned to their village months later, the remains of cows and horses dotted the fields. Roxana told me that the houses were in horrendous shape, and mud and decayed animals’ bodies made the stench intolerable. Her son, Erick, said he really needed to go to the USA for work, for there was nothing for him in the devastated village. “But my family and the parrots need me, so I will stay.” Erick out patrolling and protecting parrots And he did, as did several other young people who together make up the parrot rangers of this village on the border. (I purposely am not mentioning the name of the village to avoid giving international illegal poachers and buyers any more information than they already have.) Erick leads this group of rangers, including the hero Evelyn, who I wrote about in a previous blog. Roots to his place hold him close, and what he said reminds me of the lyrics of the song, “Spirit of Life” that we sing in our Unitarian Universalist Congregations: “Roots hold me close, wings set me free.” Evening craft time making wing jewelry I believe that the parrot work does set them free, and us too. Not only does it provide some income that gives them the chance to help their families and go to school, but it gives them meaning and a way to help their homeland. To honor their work, I brought them beads in the shape of wings with hearts, and embroidery twine. I presented this to them during my last night there, and suddenly we were engaged in a craft activity, with the rangers quickly making various kinds of adornments to hold their bead wings. Wings, both of the jewelry and the wild kind, hold all our hopes. For more hope, please consider donating today.

Poacher's bag with the team that saved the nest - Evelyn in the middle The young parrot protector, Evelyn, heard some voices coming towards her, and so she hid. She was by herself protecting a yellow-headed parrot nest a long way from home. The five men looked like poachers to her and indeed they halted in the muddy water at the base of the nest tree. She backed away and took off running to warn other rangers who were guarding a more distant nest. With reinforcements she returned to the nest and confronted the men who lied that they weren’t there to poach the nest of this highly endangered bird in Guatemala. Not believing them, the parrot rangers escorted the men out of the community lands. Later that same day they had to repeat this process with two more presumed poachers. They were on super high alert and had caught these men, because just two weeks before poachers had come while the rangers had taken a lunch break back in the village and the poachers took advantage of this and robbed one of the nests. A few days after Evelyn’s heroic action, I went with the team of rangers, skirting the muddy pool, looking up at the nest tree (right) while Evelyn told me her story. While she was talking one of the other rangers discovered a discarded bag that the poachers had hidden near the tree. The contents consisted of a saw, a rope, a flashlight, a towel, a water bottle, a plastic container with moldy food, and an empty beer can. Poachers travel light and move fast, so I congratulated this committed team in being able to ward off the poachers who, without their actions, surely would have taken the rest of their nests. Contents of the poacher's bag The next day I was with half of the team reviewing some nests further away, and we paused in silence as we heard voices coming from unknown men who should not be in the forest patch. With hand signals we communicated that we should split up; two of us went to a nest and the other two followed the tracks in the mud to find the poachers. One ranger checked his pistol to make sure it was in ready order. We didn’t find the poachers that day, but not even a week later, the poachers had taken two red-lored amazon nests (two photos below by Selvin Saavedra), and today, another group of poachers was escorted out of the area. If the poachers shift to night time poaching we are in for a world of hurt here, for it would mean camping under the nests and keeping guard 24/7, a huge task for this team, and for any parrot protection team. These people are mounting an incredible effort, especially considering that they only returned recently to their village after they had to flee it during the back-to-back hurricanes in November 2020. But I worry for them. Some poachers carry fire arms, and all have machetes. For that reason, we are working with CONAP, a government wildlife protection agency, to patrol this area as often as we can afford. They are accompanied by other government agencies as well as the military (photos by Julian Serrato below of recent military operation where the nests are). These people need support to keep the parrots of the world flying free and to rebuild the forest, the parrot population, and their lives. One of the young rangers said, “I thought about immigrating to the USA, but the parrots and my family need me.” The rangers with their support team - CONAP, village elder, and community dogs! If you would like to help these young rangers, please consider donating or spreading the word about their efforts. Let us not hide the truth of their lives and of the risk that exists for them and their parrots. It will mean the world to them to know that you are walking with them

Before March 2020, I was in a different country nearly every month. Then, when literally packed up and waiting to catch a ride to the airport, the Guatemalan President went live on national television and basically said to foreigners, "Don’t come." That was thirteen months ago. So, after receiving the second Covid-19 vaccine shot, once again my office is strewn with gear and tech. This time I believe I’ll make it to Guatemala to visit our bi-coastal parrot conservation efforts – we work with the yellow-headed amazon on the Atlantic coast and the yellow-naped amazon on the Pacific coast. Two of the conservationists I will be working with next week in Guatemala (photo by Julian Serrato of CONAP) People keep asking me if I’m deliriously happy to be free from the stay-at-home lifestyle and able to fly free with my beloveds. Well…yes…I am grateful. And ambivalent. Did I soften up in these intervening months? Will hiking in 95-degree humid heat to the parrots’ nests do me in? Nah, I just need to see one nest tree today, not all five. Will my hammock be as comfortable as it once was, and be enough privacy for me with the ten or more conservationists and soldiers camping out with me? When are we getting back to a town with a hotel? My future camp mates on their way to the conservation site (photo by Julian Serrato) Where we will be "camping" in the community building and school - now with our new anti-poaching signs for the community (photo by Julian Serrato) Will my cargo pants still fit? They do, mostly, but they aren’t nearly as comfy as my PJs and sweat pants. And what am I going to do with all those pockets? And will witnessing the poaching of parrot nests hurt less or more when I can actually touch the tree and hear the beseeching calls of the chicks' parents? I think it will be the same, though the meaning of being able to do all I can for the people and their wild parrots, and being with them as present as possible, might lessen the persistent ache. A yellow-headed amazon nest poached on April 8, 2021 I’m well aware that I am privileged to be able to go visit our conservation partners, because it is so hard for them to be protected with vaccines and adequate health care, let alone obtain documents to travel safely out of harm’s way. The southern border of the USA is currently overwhelmed with people coming from where I am headed in a few days. The two back-to-back hurricanes in November are still having an impact on local communities in Guatemala and Honduras, leaving many without homes, jobs, or enough food. I’ve had plenty in the last year, and now it’s my turn to do with a little less comfort. But I will be comforted, because most of these people with whom I work are not strangers. We’ve been in close contact during the past year via WhatsApp and Zoom, maybe even more so than when I used to travel a lot, because our movements have been more restricted and have slowed down. But face-to-face time, standing on common ground beneath a parrot tree, and looking to the sky together helps us dream with more passion of a world with more justice and compassion. That’s where we’re headed together. Oh, what a place we are going to! I will be distributing patches and stickers with this message: We are all going to that promised land together!

Does counting parrots while floating down a river sound like fun? It sure is, even with all the motoring over rapids in the dark, fire ant swarms, snakes, and lightening strikes. We have been trying out a new method for counting parrots, and invite you to help us further develop this methodology for monitoring parrot populations by river in areas that might not otherwise be accessible, except by water or by air. This is especially true in the Guyana Shield countries of Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. You can read more about this methodology in this recently prepared draft manuscript, "An Invitation to Collaborate Using River Transects in Parrot Population Monitoring." We say "draft" because this is very much a work in progress and we'd enjoy your comments and collaboration. Below is the scientific summary of that document. David Edwards and Andrew Albert on the Rewa River Many areas within the Americas face tremendous threats from trapping, poaching, and ecosystem degradation, yet it is largely unknown what impact these activities have on parrots. Population monitoring of parrot species, especially in hard-to-reach areas, takes resources and capacity that are not readily available in many regions. Rivers are often the only way to access remote regions or to cover large areas while minimizing resource use. This method builds upon other approaches to assess parrot populations, in particular one outlined in One Earth Conservation's “Guide to Multiple Fixed Transects in Parrot Monitoring.” The methodology in that guide of using terrestrial line transects for counting parrot populations on land was adjusted to using line transects covered by moving boats on water. Each moving river transect was two hours in length, with people stopping to count every 15 minutes and 500 meters, for a total of four kilometers in length. A complete transect consisted of two moving transects: one up river from a single fixed-point count and one downriver. These structured formal counts were combined with casual observations to develop a river survey methodology, which was then tested on the Rewa and Rupununi rivers in Guyana from 2016 to 2018, followed in 2019 by seven days of a river parrot survey going up the river from Rewa. The results obtained are descriptive in nature and indicate how this methodology might be used to support a community’s conservation and ecotourism goals. We found it helpful for our conservation efforts in Rewa, in part because Rewa runs an eco-lodge where tourists use the river for fishing and wildlife viewing. Using this methodology, we were able to grow our understanding of the local species of parrots, as well as their locations along the river. Perhaps this methodology could assist others, especially in the Guiana Shield where little is known about the status of parrots by large rivers. This method could also be used to quickly evaluate entire countries and river systems, so as to plan and initiate next steps in the conservation management of these species. In addition, river transects could be used as a baseline for repeated counts, so as to assess population trends. We invite conservationists, researchers, managers, and communities to experiment with this method, or to offer comments and suggestions so that we may learn together. A huge thanks to the many who co-authored this invitation and supported the project in so many ways.

(continued from October 13, 2020) (photo by Giulia Forsythe) Lives have been disrupted for centuries by the wealth that was taken from people so as to strengthen other countries, such as Europe and the USA. Conservation in large part depends upon this wealth. Even One Earth Conservation receives money that might have come from oppression. We also get money from governments, and so risk becoming the tools of politicians who want stable world order instead of transformative possibilities for more justice. Our work builds capacity and resilience in indigenous communities while the very forces that give birth to these needs are not being adequately questioned. So how do we work in the colonial system, which itself must be disrupted? Is anyone going to work with us if we are a disruptive influence? Am I willing to risk losing control of the positive outcomes of our conservation organization by making a fuss? Losing control is preferable to losing another person, people or species, or the earth, don’t you think? Taking seriously the historical wounds, is empowering and healthy for all of us, and part of the process of dismantling racism and colonialism. Tending to the wounds of others and the planet and admitting one’s human role in the process has been liberating, and for my part, diminishes the shame response. Concretely, this consists of allyship, admitting shared vulnerability and the receipt of benefits from colonial extraction economies and making space for the conversation. Towards that aim, this past summer, Rev. Meredith Garmon, a board member of One Earth Conservation, and I allied with others to facilitate an internal webinar series on the intersections of oppression, white supremacy, and colonialism within conservation. I really didn’t want to do it, because isn’t a white person putting together a panel the very example of privilege and controlling the conversation? I conferred with several people of color and of colonized lands and they told me to go for it. The experience was both uncomfortable and so vitalizing! One Earth Conservation is also calling for reparations, and in our case, we call it re-parrotations. This term means to put parrots back where they belong – that is, re-parroting their homelands to help make up for the heavy toll of parrot extraction to supply the pet trade in the USA and elsewhere. In addition, One Earth Conservation wrote an internal document that de-centers us as an organization in our conservation projects, which is scary because we might not be as “successful.” Instead we center our work ever more on relationships, community empowerment, grassroots fundraising, and decolonization. We also passed a public statement on decolonization on March 3, 2021. Decolonization is not an easy path. It’s easier to sweep into a country and take control of the conversation, the power, and the flow of money to help make others more capable and more empowered. That’s the colonialist way – to try to make others stronger, so that the people there can resist the destruction of our planet that hits them the hardest, while the conservationist doesn’t disrupt their own lives overly. Julian Reid in the journal Resilience, gave an example of this dynamic in his article “We the Resilient: Colonizing indigeneity in the era of Trump.” He told of the Makushi people in Guyana. International organizations aid them to be more resistant to climate change’s droughts and floods, and then romanticize them because of their resilience and capacity, which reflects favorably on the outside organization. Reid claims that the colonizer mindset expects indigenous and impoverished people to be strong rather than the aid agencies themselves working to disrupt the entire system in which we are embedded. He also mentions how these people are vulnerable, because the colonizers placed a national border through the Makushi lands, separating Brazil from Guyana, weakening local autonomy and social capital, and dividing the common ties the people had with each other and the land. A Makushi village in Brazil that welcomed us and enjoyed showing us their cultural traditions and objects I work with the Makushi people in Guyana and I took a trip into Makushi indigenous territory in Roraima, Brazil in February 2020. We were looking for partners to work on sun parakeet conservation, because this little brightly colored and very endangered bird disregards colonial boundaries and goes back and forth across the border. If we want to save the parakeet in Guyana, we have to also do so in Brazil. We came upon one village which treated us as others had not. They were angry to see us on their land, or so I surmised as I listened to the interpreter, for their language was in Portuguese. These Brazilians had lost their Makushi language. They told me that they wanted to tie me and my colleague, the interpreter and chief of a village in Guyana, to our truck and then set it afire and burn us along with the others who came with us. They told us to leave their village, their land, and their country. And so, we did. I really wanted to work in Brazil and wished that the Brazilian Makushi had thought it through better. On the other hand, I knew there was some colonial thinking going on, assuming I had the answers for them while using my shield of Guyanese Makushi colleagues for protection. I admired their powerful autonomy laced with mistrust of those who seek to take from them what is theirs. It’s not that I like it when I am threatened and thrown out of a country, but it was a good lesson learned. Others are learning lessons with me, unlike many years ago when I worked in Puerto Rico. The idea of Transformative Conservation is being floated about. Transformation in conservation means that we must engage in personal, inner transformation, as well as outer transformation, which means aligning with justice movements of peoples. We are hosting conversations on this topic on March 13 and 14, in Spanish and in English. Please join us as we learn together and see how we might be in solidarity with others through the transformational process. (For more information and to register, go here.) I’ve written a lot about my personal experiences and about conservation, so please do join me in these conversations, for I have so many questions and really want to learn from you. In the meantime, here are some ideas that I gleaned from the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity survey I took a couple of years ago: · Slow down. Outcomes may not matter as much as the relationship and community empowerment. · Make a place for the conversation and remember that there is not just one indigenous culture. · Ask really good questions. For me this means not asking them what kind of truck they want, but instead asking them what they truly desire and need. Have others tell you about their despair and you tell them yours. · Adapt to their culture while being true to your own. I took this last recommendation particularly to heart when last year I was in a really messy meeting with our Miskitu rangers in La Moskita. It got hot. People were angry, shouting, pointing, and blaming and shaming. Ever in the colonial mindset of categorizing people in other cultures, the meeting confirmed my understanding of them as a fierce people. Their way was not my way or culture, but listening and being empathetic wasn’t working for me, or helping the process, so I reached in deeply and called on my inner Miskitu. Then I got tough back. That was sure fun! And they told me that they appreciated my adaptive ability to engage as they did. Miskitu parrot rangers in La Moskitia, Honduras It can be fun, and we need it to be because of the challenging necessity to align with indigeneity. We’ve all been wounded, you and me, and hence we are intertwined with the joy and justice that is possible this day, and every day. I believe that this journey of transformation is liberating. I feel more powerful, or at least more powerful together with others, by confessing to and dismantling the personal and organizational systems that protect my power and privilege. If we distance ourselves from the suffering or social analysis, or stay away from others, we remain trapped within the shadow of our nature. If we get close to the wound, and seek to heal it, our lives will vibrate vividly with connection and then one day, they will say this is how our words got their colors and how we sang with all the colors of the wind.