This Video Diary entry chronicles the Paradise Earth Team's 4th day in Panama. David Calvin discusses our chance encounter with a Panamanian farming family; video highlights include footage of hillside farming and the startling visual of rainforest destruction for subsistence farming.
Panama, Day 3! Video highlights include gorgeous footage of a waterfall to which the Paradise Earth team hiked. See the raw power of the water as 4 members of the team venture underneath the fall!
This is David Calvin's video diary from the Paradise Earth Team's second day in Panama. Highlights include video and images from our visit with the Gnobe Indians on their island off the coast from Chiriqui Grande.
David Calvin, the founder of the Paradise Earth Project and the co-host of the Paradise Earth TV series, created a nightly video diary while we were filming in Panama. This is the first evening of the diary entries.
The snake in the video was identified as a jumping pit viper. Our guides were extremely excited to find this snake in the area where we did, because it had never been sighted there before. This snake was carefully transported back to a large, well-constructed habitat at Willie Mazu (the nature center where we stayed). We were lucky enough to be able to get additional photos of this viper before we left for the next phase of our trip. Willie Martinez, the owner of Willie Mazu, called the University in Panama to let them know that the snake had been found in the area. The last we heard, a researcher from the University was coming to get the snake for further study. We were grateful that he had been found by Willie, who was more interested in studying him than killing him!
One of the longest and most difficult days that the Paradise Earth team spent in Panama was hiking the Quetzal Trail to Boquete. The Quetzal Trail has been the focus of a lot of controversy in Panama; the former President wanted to pave the trail over Volcan Baru in order to facilitiate travel for economic reasons, but the conservationists were vehemently opposed to such an idea. Aside from destroying a major habit for endangered Queztals, cutting a road where only a footpath currently traverses the volcano would effectively isolate many ground-dwelling species. There are dozens of animals that will not cross a paved road, and the species diversity around Volcan Baru would suffer greatly if the Quetzal Trail were to be paved.
Enjoy this slideshow of images from along the Quetzal Trail; hiking over the top of the volcano made us keenly aware of what we would lose if the Panamanian government were allowed to pave this important piece of the rain forest.
During our trip to Panama, we were lucky enough to be able to spend 2 days on the San Blas Islands. The Kuna Indians now inhabit these islands, and we were invited to visit two of their communities. Enjoy this slideshow of images from our visit... the accompanying music was an original piece they played as they danced a traditional dance for the Paradise Earth Team.
