In a remote corner of the Amazon, Brazilian ecologists are trying to succeed where a lack of governance has proved disastrous. They re managing a stretch of land in a way that welcomes both local people and scientists to engage in preserving the world s largest tropical forest.
Sometimes you start something and have no idea where it will lead. So it was with Eduardo Filgueiras, a struggling guitarist whose family worked in an unusual business in Rio de Janeiro: They farmed toads. Filgueiras figured out a way to take the small toad skins and fuse them together, creating something large enough to sell.
A controlled fishing system in the Brazilian Amazon Basin is helping to save the endangered pirarucú fish. Methods to limit illegal fishing have led to large increases in the pirarucú population.