Here are some of the “worst” things about our Ethiopia expedition:

1. Car trouble
2. Hornbill-hitting-windscreen (will send from laptop)
3. Eating ONLY with the right hand (because the left is used for something else)
4. Watching where you step….. the church forest ground abounds with dung-beetle habitat
5. Eucalpyt plantings that ultimately suck down the water table, and displace native trees
6. Student housing for clergy disciples

The best moments:

1. Our amazing team of scientists and citizens
2. the church leadership, with their vision to conserve their forests
3. the kids of Ethiopia, who shared our love for the small creatures of our planet
4. The sobering lessons learned from watching women and families in Ethiopia, and how important it is to empower moms and children in emerging countries

This past year, students from biology professor Meg Lowman’s ecology and conservation biology classes, as well as bioinformatics and computational science professors Christopher Hart and Leon Kaganovskiy’s classes, conducted research on the threat and pervasiveness of invasive pythons in our state. Interviews with the student and faculty researchers along with footage shot and produced by them will be aired on Thursday’s program. Please tune in.

“El Techo de los bosques es el octavo continente”

• PDF of the original article
• Spanish text of the article
• Text of article translated to English using Google Translate

Stay tuned, as we put our video feeds onto the blog in the next few days — the very antiquated computer systems in Ethiopia could not handle the files. All of our participants are true heroes of the planet, and to them, I can never say THANK YOU enough — they gave their time, expertise, sweat and toil, funds, and follow-up. The church forests of Ethiopia have never had such a magnitude of talent and passion infused into their greenery. And the hard work is yet to come — identifying insects, tabulating data, interpreting photos, and sharing the word with others who may help us save these precious last forest patches for the heritage of Ethiopia and also the planet.

My list of heroes:

• Dr. Alemayehu Wassie — my collaborator, expert on Ethiopian church forest trees, and adept juggler of church and science
• Susan Jarzen - expert leaf analyzer, logistics coordinator for the trip
• Dr. David Jarzen - paleo-botanist, volunteer in all capacities, and niow an expert in teaching kids how to use sweep nets!
• Dr. Cat Cardelius - soil and epiphyte expert, climber extraordinaire
• Dr. Neville Winchester - micro-arthropod expert, and creative field biologist who managed to put up his extraction traps in all sorts of rough conditions
• Phil Harpootlian - beetle expert and especially good for our extensive dung beetle collection
• Janet Ciegler - another Coleoptera expert, and also carried our Explorers Club Expedition flag
• Dr. Hal Heatwole - ant man, who traipsed all forests with his simple-but-effective sardine bait traps
• Robert Kluttz - freshmen at University of North Carolina- Wilmington and future conservation biologist (we all hope!)
• Bob Kluttz - birdman of Ethiopia, and supporter of all aspects of the expedition
• Jessica Chan - teacher and liaison with the children, in our quest to educate the village kids about conserving their local church forests
• Dr. Phil Wittman - another climber extraordinaire, also rigger of trees, photographer, and fix-it skills for all field challenges
• Dr. Claire Ozanne - Our British entomologist, specializing in Diptera (flies) and also canopy/understory insect fauna.

Additional thanks to our team players who worked from home:

• Wendy Nalvern, the world’s most amazing travel agent who got all of us out of multiple pickles along the way
• David Martin, webmaster
• Staff at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences who are holding down the fort!

We got over 3000 insects as mentioned earlier, with a large portion Diptera and also Coleoptera. Of note many of the Coleoptera tend to be dung beetles (exact counts to follow) which may indicate the lack of modern hygiene within the church forests for ablutions. We are advocating for a toilet block at Zhara, since 120 live within this gorgeous green site, but there are no established toilet blocks. This patterns may shift the biodiversity of the insect fauna, as well as have other marked impacts on human health. We plan to return in the dry season to more carefully student the herbivores in the canopy, during flowering seasons.

On our last day, we drove to Lalibela to view the most unique church of all Ethiopia. Forged from one massive rock formation, Lalibela defeats all conceivable means of both architectural and construction technologies. How did Ethiopians in the 1200s carve hard rock into 13 churches? And how did they cart tools and food and shelter up an amazing mountain to execute this project? And what were the tools of the trade? And how do you design down from the soil surface into bedrock, and design amazing cathedral structures? It was overwhelming.

Church of Saint George, Lalibela facts (Source: Wikipedia):

• Built in the early thirteenth century
• Most well known and last built of the eleven churches in the Lalibela area
• Has been referred to as the “Eighth Wonder of the World”
• The dimensions of the complex are 25 meters by 25 meters by 30 meters

I am thrilled that we have epiphytes! Thus far I have found 5 species of epiphytic ferns at the low elevation site, Zhara, and 4 species of epiphytic ferns at the higher elevation, Debresena. One species overlaps between the two sites. I haven’t found any flowering plants in the canopy. There are also a few species of moss. The lower elevation site also had more canopy soil (yes, trees can accumulate soil) than the higher elevation site.

I have collected forest floor soils, canopy soils, epiphytes and host tree foliar tissue from each site. From these samples I will analyze the nutrient concentrations. We chose the same tree species within each site and examine trees along the edge of the forest and in the interior to examine if there are noticeable edge effects in species composition and foliar nutrients.

Yesterday, after another big rainstorm, one of our 3 four-wheel drives got stuck on a very steep and slick slope, so scary that most of us got out and walked up the hill along with the villagers. Even worse, the drivers took our vehicles into the bottom of another steep valley in the afternoon, and again it was a fairly hairy ride back up to the main dirt road. Roads are mainly for walking around here, and the sight of a motorized vehicle invites all the children to wave and shout. It is slightly embarrassing to have such marked economic differences between the locals and the visitors. Even the Oxfam and Care and UN workers that we see and meet in the field all stay in the nicer hotels and usually have the only other cars that we see. The world is continually creating a large chasm between the haves and the have-nots. At the least, we need to help the Ethiopians hang on to their natural capital (their biodiversity and natural resources) for their future economy and quality of life.