Intelligence in Nature - Jeremy Narby [3]
About a year and a half after visiting Laine Roht, it dawned on me that if something is destined to remain secret, then trying to find out about it is not problematic. Perhaps Laine Roht is right, and no one will ever understand how plants and people are made. But trying to gain knowledge about how nature knows is no crime. True, knowledge can be abused. But if nature has knowledge and I am part of nature, why should I not aim for knowledge?
Chapter 1
BRAINY BIRDS
One day in September 2001 I boarded a canoe piloted by a Matsigenka Indian and began heading down the Urubamba River. We made our way through gorges filled with colorful parrots and other birds. The forests and rivers in this part of the Peruvian Amazon contain more species of trees, insects, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals than any other region of similar size. We were entering the epicenter of world biodiversity.
At nightfall, we camped on a small beach on the riverbank. I was traveling with a Peruvian anthropologist, an American environmental foundation director, and two Swiss friends. We were on our way to inspect a project run by a local Matsigenka community. My companions retired early after a long day on the river, but I sat up next to the fire listening to the hypnotic wall of sound produced by the forest. I could hear cicadas and crickets buzzing, birds singing odd melodies, frogs croaking, and monkeys howling. In the Amazon, nature plays loud, especially at night.
The next morning we continued downriver and reached the docking site of a lodge called the Matsigenka Centre for Tropical Studies. It was perched on a high bluff overlooking the river. I was curious to see this community-development project, which claims to combine income generation with respect for biodiversity. We climbed a long wooden staircase and walked into the lodgeâs entrance to find polished hardwood floors and fully screened corridors. Further inspection revealed clean beds and tiled bathrooms with hot water. In all my years of visiting rural settings in the Peruvian Amazon, I had yet to see this level of comfort. As a Matsigenka receptionist took down our names, an American client walked past and asked casually: âHad a good trip?â
I settled in and took a shower, then joined my companions in the dining area. We ordered papaya juice, fish, and rice from a Matsigenka waiter. Several other tables were occupied by a group of Americans, who spoke excitedly about the birds they had observed that morning in the forest. After lunch, one of the men came over to our table and introduced himself as Charlie Munn. A tall man with a large forehead, Munn began telling us about his profession and passion, studying birds. He had been coming to the Peruvian Amazon for twenty-five years, he said, and had done his doctoral research in the nearby Manu Biosphere Reserve. Working with Matsigenka Indians, Munn and his team discovered that macaws, the colorful giants of the parrot world, gather daily for most of the year at large banks of clay, which they peck at and consume in small morsels. When Munn and his colleagues first observed this behavior in the Manu, they assumed they had found the only macaw âclay lickâ in the world. But with the help of indigenous guides, they went on to find dozens more, one of which was an hourâs walk from the lodge we were sitting in.
All this was new to me, and I had not expected to run into a leading bird scientist while traveling down the Urubamba. Nor was I used to people presenting their work so forthrightly. But I found Munn interesting and did not interrupt him. He said he and his research team were initially mystified by the macawsâ consumption of clay. They assumed the clay