One of a series of blog posts written during the Field Museum's 2010 Yaguas rapid inventory of Yaguas, Peru, and published by the New York Times.

"Long dry spells like these in Amazonia wither crops and worsen air pollution and cut off whole towns from the rest of the world, when the arm of the river they’re on turns to mud. They also destroy forests. Scientists used to think that if the guys with chainsaws could be convinced to stop cutting down trees, tropical deforestation would just stop. We now know that if all the guys with chainsaws stopped cutting down trees tomorrow morning, Amazonian forests might disappear anyway, thanks to higher temperatures, droughts, and forest fires. Guys with chainsaws, meet guys with laptops (and air conditioners, and station wagons, and blogs)...."

Read the whole post here.

Photo by Álvaro del Campo