Welcome to my project diary. Ever since my Geography lessons at school, I have been fascinated by the great diversity of life in the rainforests. They represent one of the few remaining natural frontiers, and I used to dream about visiting a rainforest before the opportunity disappeared.
I also aspire to be one of the agents in society to change public attitudes and to raise awareness of environmental protection. I am delighted to say that Shell's Project Better World scheme helped me to make these dreams a reality.
I am very grateful to Shell for this unforgettable opportunity, and I urge you all to help Project Better World become an even greater success. If you are a Shell employee, contact your local Project Better World member for information on how to get involved. You can also visit www.earthwatch.org (opens in a new window) for details of other environmental projects.
Avis Lau
Day One
Athayde, our project coordinator, met me at the airport and took me with the rest of the party to the hotel in Macabu. With him were other volunteers from Australia, Canada and two Shell employees from Britain, all of us really excited about starting the project. All of the volunteers had come through Earthwatch, and the two Shell staff were part of Project Better World.
Despite our enthusiasm, the 25-hour flight took its toll on me, and soon into the three-hour bus ride I fell asleep, my eyes dizzy with the lush green scenery and wild horses we passed.
Day Two
I woke up to the song of roosters at 5am, with the smell of rain and grass filling the air. It was hours before the first field trip would start, so I grabbed some more sleep.
That morning we went out into the field to practise capturing and marking the bees. At the sampling site we loaded the traps, which contained chemicals to attract bees, and waited for results. And waited. Not a single bee came to our site all morning, and we decided that the weather was against us.
In the afternoon, we hiked up the hill and breathed in the amazing panorama - you could even see the city of Rio.
Day Three
Rain all day! Fortunately we had a contingency plan for the morning, and were given a lecture on rainforests. We learned about the evolutionary theories of Darwin and Wallace, as well as what fragmentation could do to a forest and the kind of organisms living in it.
After lunch, the rain trapped us in our cabin. Some of us sat back and read, and others went out jogging on the muddy road. Perhaps we were suffering from cabin fever when we started to discuss the 'big issues' of science versus philosophy. As I thought it would, the debate ended up unresolved and at 11pm we sloped off to bed, hoping that tomorrow would yield some results.
Day Four
We had been waiting for a jeep for three days to get to the sampling site, and it was still not ready. Athayde was having a real headache chasing after the mechanic, but at last a vehicle arrived.
We began our ascent of the mountain confidently, but to our frustration the new red jeep expired and we had to jump into another. The driver of this stand-in sat on top of the fuel tank, which was dangerously leaking fuel, and the smell of petrol at the front, plus the exhaust gas from the back, almost choked us in the 2-hour drive.
But once we were at the site, our luck improved and our first trial of catching bees was a runaway success. Holding up those bees and marking them was much easier than I thought, and it struck me how cute they were, with their glistening green markings.
At last, the project had started in earnest, and despite the jeep trouble we all felt great satisfaction at our progress.
Day Five
Today was our first day of serious sampling. We split into two teams, led by Athayde and Gilberto, another project coordinator, and set off for different sampling sites in the fragments of the Atlantic Rainforest.
Gilberto and I had the second best results for the day. We captured and marked seven bees while Jane from Shell UK and Michelle got twelve. The others saw no bees all day.
We worked hard for our seven bees, though. Gilberto and I had to wade through a river, then cross a field full of waist-high grass, fending off mosquitoes all the way. There are so many of them out here, they would be much easier to study than bees - you could just use your own body as bait.
Back at our base, tea and coffee was waiting for us and Georgina, our cook, had made some delicious rain cakes for us. These cakes are shaped like raindrops, and Brazilian people traditionally make them for their children on rainy days - of which there are plenty!
Day Six
I teamed up with Tony from the UK today and we caught nine bees, all of them the little shining green ones called 'Euglossini', or orchid bees. We were sent to the sampling site just behind our house, and while we waited for the bees to find the bait, Tony shared some of his travelling anecdotes with me.
His experiences were amazing - he spent four years travelling after university, including 13 months yachting. I can't imagine there are many fathers of triplets who have travelled the world to such an extent. Spurred on by Tony's adventurous spirit, I ended the day with a long walk around hills at the back of the hotel.
Day Seven
A long, hot day that started badly when we had to jump-start the jeep - again. Mark and I were dropped off at the first sampling site, and Athayde arranged to pick us up at 2pm.
We managed to mark just three bees before it was time to meet Athayde. We were left waiting for what seemed an eternity before he finally materialised at 3.30pm. Athayde told us he had been pushing the red jeep around trying to start it for the past hour or so, but to no avail. Eventually, it had to be towed by Athayde's own jeep.
We jump-started the red jeep again hoping that it would run on its own, but of course the engine failed. We waited under the hot sun in the middle of nowhere for someone to help. The temperature was 36°C and we had completely run out of water already. We started to talk morbidly about vultures circling above us, wondering which one of us would be plucked from the ground first.
Finally, the red jeep was towed back to town with four of us in it, and we immediately found some coconuts. We couldn't split them open quickly enough, and their milk was like nectar. We all looked exhausted and Michelle's white clothes were saturated with dust and sweat.
A hard day's work for a total of just four bees caught and marked.
Day Eight and Nine
This was supposed to be our last day with the bees, though in reality I spent more time with other insects.
Athayde, Michelle and I (plus our driver, Luziano) arrived at the sampling site, and almost immediately I discovered something horrifying - hundreds of little bugs sprawling across the bottom of my trousers.
I told myself not to overreact and, trying to stay calm, showed Athayde. "Oh my God, I think they're ticks!" he screeched. For 45 minutes I tried to scrape the tiny little creatures off me, and even though I was assured the ticks don't carry diseases, they did bite and I felt disgusting.
What made it even worse was having to stand in a forest with bare legs. The mosquitoes were enough of a challenge for a fully dressed person covered with insect repellent, but there I stood, uncovered and completely at their mercy. All this left me feeling very vulnerable.
It was also a bad day for the project, as none of us caught a single bee.
Our final day was such a release. The red jeep, working at last, took us to a beautiful waterfall for a swim. The sun and the rocks were red hot, so it was wonderful to sink into the cool water and scull around in it for a while. Athayde's dog wasn't quite so sure, and instead stood at the margins whimpering at us until we came out again. It was a wonderfully relaxing end to an amazing trip.
Postscript
Although the two weeks I spent in Brazil did not yield a great amount of new data, we still helped to push the project forward. After all, that is what field work is all about. Unlike laboratory research, we have to deal with many variables that are completely out of our control, and it is essential that testing is on-going to compensate for this.
I find it very rewarding to know that I have worked hard to help conserve the rainforest, and have made some good friends along the way. Funding is limited, so volunteers are essential for research to be done on time and to budget. The scientists are always grateful for the help they receive.
The most important thing is that, by participating in the project, we have become active agents for environmental conservation, and for raising awareness of it among the people around us. I can't wait to read the results of our findings.
