CHAPTER IX
ISLANDS ON DRY LAND
Eciton burchellii
BR-174 runs from the city of Manaus, in the Brazilian state of
Amazonas, more or less due north to the Venezuelan border. The road
used to be lined with the wreckage of cars that had skidded off to one side
or the other, but since it was paved, about twenty years ago, it has
become easier to navigate and now, instead of burned-out hulks, there’s
an occasional café catering to travelers. After an hour or so the cafés give
out, and after another hour, there’s a turnoff to a single-lane road, ZF-3,
that heads due east. ZF-3 remains unpaved, and, owing to the color of the
dirt in Amazonas, it appears as a bright orange gash tearing through the
countryside. Follow ZF-3 for another three-quarters of an hour and you
reach a wooden gate closed with a length of chain. Beyond the gate, some
cows are standing around looking sleepy, and beyond the cows is what’s
known as Reserve 1202.
Reserve 1202 might be thought of as an island at the center of the
Amazon. I arrived there on a hot, cloudless day in the middle of the rainy
season. Fifty feet into the reserve, the foliage was so dense that even with
the sun directly overhead, the light was still murky, as in a cathedral.
From a nearby tree came a high-pitched squeal that made me think of a
police whistle. This, I was told, was the call of a small, unassuming bird
known as a screaming piha. The piha screamed again, then fell silent.
Unlike a naturally occurring island, Reserve 1202 is an almost perfect
square. It is twenty-five acres of untouched rainforest surrounded by a
“sea” of scrub. In aerial photos it shows up as a green raft bobbing on
waves of brown.
Reserve 1202 is part of a whole archipelago of Amazonian islands, all
with equally clinical-sounding names: Reserve 1112, Reserve 1301, Reserve
- Some of the reserves are even smaller than twenty-five acres; a few